FARMERS are blockading a property near Spring Ridge on the Liverpool Plains in a bid to stop Santos pushing ahead with drilling for pilot production wells for coal seam gas.
Landholders are angry the company is pushing ahead with pilot drilling instead of waiting for the completion of a multi-million dollar catchment wide water study.
The Namoi catchment water study was kicked off in September last year in response to sustained lobbying by landholders wanting to know what impact coal and gas development would have on the region’s underground and surface water supplies.
A final report is due in the first half of next year.
Spokesman for the Caroona Coal Action Group (CCAG), Tim Duddy, said farmers were frustrated by Santos’ decision to press ahead with what it was calling “pilot” work despite the company’s claims it was concerned about protecting the environment.
“They are refusing to wait a matter of months for the outcome of a water study which could be the difference between saving one of the nation’s most productive agricultural areas or destroying it forever,” he said.
Mr Duddy said while Santos had claimed it was only “pilot” work, in every case he knew of these had always progressed to full CSG production.
“This is unquestionably one of the most valuable agricultural areas in Australia fed by an extraordinary network of aquifer systems and our community is not going to stand by and watch it destroyed overnight,” Mr Duddy said.
About 100 people are outside the property with the entrance blocked by vehicles and heavy farm machinery.
Mr Duddy said the group was prepared to blockade the property “for as long as it takes”.
Mr Duddy said CCAG had written to both the State and Federal governments in the past week seeking their urgent intervention but was yet to receive a response.
He said CCAG had called on them to require Santos to postpone its CSG production until the Namoi Water Study is complete and its outcomes properly understood.
However manager of community and government relations for Santos NSW, Sam Crafter, Gunnedah, said while the company supported the study and had contributed to its cost, it had always made clear that it planned to continue exploration work while the study was being completed.
“We made it clear when the terms of reference were being drawn up that work would need to continue,” Mr Crafter said.
And he argued the pilot work proposed for the site on George’s Island – an outcrop on the plains - would actually contribute much-needed data towards the study.
“It will actually make the water study much more rigorous and I would have thought that was in everybody’s interest.”
Mr Crafter said the company had notified neighbouring landholders about its plans two weeks ago and offered to provide more detailed briefings to the CCAG twice since then but its offer had not been taken up.
He declined to go into detail about what the company’s next step would be.
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