There are many good reasons why the general public, and in particular farmers, are concerned about coal seam gas (CSG) extraction. There are major gaps in our knowledge about the future impacts of CSG production in Australia.
With respect to groundwater, the time to impact can be long (decades or more). Once a problem is detected it could be too late to do anything. Thus the short term benefits obtained by one generation could have long-lasting impacts on future generations.
CSG production can be done with minimum impact on adjacent groundwater systems, but like any of these complex operations there is always a risk an accident will happen. And when it does happen what will that impact be? This needs to be studied up-front.
There are many pressures on access to water. We need better management of water to protect our rivers and wetlands. We still don’t have a comprehensive working plan for the Murray-Darling Basin (though this may be available soon).
The implementation of changes in the MDB has been controversial. Many irrigation farmers have had reduced allocations as a result of environmental concerns. Now the farming sector is feeling the pressures from the expanding coal mining, underground coal mining, and coal seam gas sectors.
Protecting our agricultural production is important. Oxfam has just released a report raising concerns about future food production and distribution. Australia is a major exporter of food, and some of the proposed regions for CSG production overlap with our most productive agricultural regions.
In the Condamine, Gwydir and Namoi catchments, groundwater is extracted from the alluvial aquifers that overlay the coal seams. These coal seams may be used for gas production in the future. For some farmers in these catchments groundwater is their only major water supply.
For irrigators who also have a surface water license, groundwater is an important source of water during our extended droughts. It is natural that the farmers are concerned about CSG production, when water is critical for productive farming.
Water is needed for CSG production. The CSG sector is small at the moment, but some of the projections for its expansion indicate the CSG sector will need significant water supplies.
It doesn’t matter if the water is obtained from surface water or groundwater – CSG will have a major impact on the water balance at a local scale. The cumulative impacts have not been studied.
In Queensland, CSG producers have not yet satisfactorily demonstrated how they will manage the megalitres of poor quality saline water they will bring to the surface. The solution should be presented upfront and not be a work in progress.
There have been no background surveys to quantify the natural level of organics (including methane) for the aquifers of interest. Without background surveys, we won’t know if these levels have been added to by CSG production. We need to be able to separate the impact of CSG production from natural background levels.
Research from the USA shows methane contamination of groundwater can occur up to one kilometre away from gas production sites. This depends on the local geology, borehole installation procedures and method of operation.
In regions where the formations between the deep coal seams and the overlying alluvial aquifers have few joints or faults, and have low permeability, it is unlikely CSG production will have an impact on the shallow alluvial aquifers.
But some of the proposed methods of production will extract and re-inject megalitres of groundwater, both above and below the coal seams, causing local variations in the hydraulic gradients (slope of the water table) and potentially affecting adjacent aquifers.
Also, if a fault is nearby, it can be activated by the fracturing procedures. This is of importance for CSG developments near urban centers (for example St. Peters in Sydney).
I am not aware of any 3D flow simulation modelling results in the public domain that have attempted to quantify the migration of fluids from the proposed production zones to the fresh water aquifers used by the irrigation sector.
There has been a lack of good information provided to the general public to help them understand and visualise the impacts of CSG production. To inform the debate about the expansion of the CSG sector, 3D geological models and 3D flow simulation results need to be made publicly available.
The research required is complex and costly (millions of dollars) and will take several years if done correctly. Installing monitoring boreholes, running chemical tests and building 3D flow simulation models are all expensive activities.
That said, these studies are needed now before the sector gets too large.
Of critical importance is the good communication of the results. There will be regions in Australia where CSG production can be done with minimal local impact (although it will contribute to greenhouse gases). There will be other areas where concerns will be highlighted.
At present we don’t have good scientific information informing the debate. We have not done the necessary homework to quantify the cumulative impacts of surface coal mining, underground coal mining, irrigation farming, dryland farming, and coal seam gas production.
While we have a situation where the public debate is not being informed by good balanced information there will be conflict.
Good information cannot be made available unless the appropriate research is funded.
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Comments (12)
Huw Morgan
(logged in via LinkedIn)
Just Completed my 4th year Environmental engineering thesis on the effects of hydraulic fractures on well hydraulics using Modflow. I was surprised at how little information was available in the public domain. Definitely interested in returning for a PHD in the future to work on this issue.
Sandra Kwa
student (logged in via email @exemail.com.au)
Thank you for confirming that there is a dangerous lack of scientific data on the impacts. I can't understand why, with legal regulations in place covering most environmentally-risky industries, the law is conspicuously absent in protecting the environment in the CSG industry. How has it gotten as far as it has already with inadequate research into the impacts? What is the opinion of environmental lawyers on this issue?
Mark Merritt
Company Director (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
The fundamental truths of our reality will not alter. Our perceptions of that reality may vary considerably.
To allow the continued overexploitation and alteration of Earth’s geologic systems is to directly risk a cataclysmic change in our natural services. If this was permitted to take place, it would be caused primarily by a blind corporate fixation on the fiscal gain, a man made illusion.
If we are truly intelligent we will consider very carefully that which is important to build a sustained humane future on Earth.
It seems clear to me that not declaring a halt to CSG exploration and extraction, until we understand the overall outcomes, would be a major mistake that could endanger the viability of the entire Australian continent.
Cheers - Mark Merritt 0427 571 770
Susan Woodward
(logged in via Twitter)
Well said, Mark.
The author makes this comment high up: "CSG production can be done with minimum impact on adjacent groundwater systems..."
How??
Just because he says it doesn't make it so. And even if it can be, that doesn't mean the mining sector is going to employ those techniques, especially if costly. Just look at its record with oil extraction.
Forget CSG. There are many, many alternatives that don't risk water -- the very basis of all life.
Shirley Birney
retiree (logged in via email @tpg.com.au)
From decade to decade there is an assurance by plunderers and sycophantic regulators that the up-to-date mining methods available are always superior to the previous ones.
The buzz-word among miners also includes “in-situ” chemical leaching of uranium; however, putting lipstick on an old pig is a mere peccadillo to this industry and Joe Citizen, who it seems is only outraged (as he/she should be) about CSG proposals. It appears that Joe Citizen is rather selective considering licences to chew…
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Oliver Roberts
PhD (logged in via email @gmail.com)
This is a reasonable appeal for more research into the impacts of CSG extraction on ground-waters in the Australian context. I would expect the CSG industry participants to fund this. Of course, the development approval processes currently in place, as overseen by the relevant State government departments, requires that all environmental impacts which can be reasonably anticipated on the basis of current knowledge and best practice be addressed; and, while the industry is relatively young and small in Australia there is the experience of over 30 years and a more than 20-fold greater scale in the USA to draw upon. The comments here misrepresent the state of knowledge within both the industry and the regulators.
Shirley Birney
retiree (logged in via email @tpg.com.au)
Bizarre isn't it? One big CSG polluter says to one big Ag. polluter: "Bet our contaminants are bigger than yours pal. Give us your land mate and you can keep dumping pesticides and nutrients in rivers, streams and the GBR then we'll be even. Okay?"
Mark Merritt
Company Director (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
CSG=NOx3 !
Colin Hunt
(Honorary Fellow in Economics at University of Queensland)
Good article. But It isn't just a problem of lack of research. The institutional arrangements for approvals of projects are also responsible. First, the project proponents fund the einvironmental impact statements, and bias is thus introduced. Second the Commonwealth and states, which have a large stake in the projects going ahead, review the EISs and, inevitably, approve the projects.The lack of science and the uncertainty of environmental outcomes resulted in many conditions being applied to the CSG/LNG projects by the Coordinator General in Queensland. Some of these conditions smack of desperation, and are impossible to meet, such as there shall be no detectable polution of groundwater. .
Theo van den Berg
IT Consultant (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
I realise that everytime I light my BBQ, I support some industry getting the stuff from somewhere. Love to have some practical information on how to extract it myself from my compost heap.
Biggest worry I see is the effect of the rest of the world. Already we overfarm our arid land so that we may feed those, who live in totally unsustainable environments. Worse still, the more food we provide for them, the more mouths they make.
So now we want to frack-it and wreck-it so that the never-ending billions in Asia can have some gas too.
If we only did this CSG thing for ourselves and only in areas, well away from farmable lands, I am sure that our big country would be able to cope with that.
btw. Recent announcement is that they can do fracking using gas instead of water. So it uses none and leaves no putrid settling ponds.
I hope that before our CSG industry gets going in ernest, that there will be some major calamity somewhere else in the world.
Steve Foster
Area Manager (logged in via email @bigpond.com)
Thanks for the article, you are right that people have a right to be concerned, and they also have a right to be informed. There is a lot of information already out there, people just in general are not interested.
In NSW, where this has become a major issue, none of the CSG companies fracture stimulate wells. Horizontal drilling conveniently gets around several issues: If you don't want this on your land, no worries. Your neighbour is likely to enjoy the money, and drill sideways a couple of kilometres.
And as for methane getting in the groundwater supply, its already there. That's why farmers can have seperators installed at the bores so they can use the gas in a generator as a ready power supply.
But the call for more study is critical, if for no other reason than to make people comfortable with this. And perhaps the industry can do itself a favour and stop talking about CSG, and start talking about Natural Gas. We've been doing this for years.
jean maxwell
concerned australian (logged in via email @hotmail.com)
Great heading " CSG conflict – we know what we don’t know, let’s do something about it" A/F Kelly. Pretty obvious you are trying to attract research funds. Maybe it what we know about the potential impacts of CSG mining we should be more concerned about??
Have just seen some of the CSG water ponds get swamped by the floods they are having in SWQld. Where is all this contaminated water going to end up? There is another issue you can follow up on.