Introduction
Eastern Star Gas has applied for approval under both state and federal regulations to develop a massive coal seam gas field of around 550 gas wells in the State Forests of The Pilliga. Commonly known as the ‘Pilliga Scrub’, this unique woodland is near Narrabri in northern NSW. The gas project is set to clear over 2,400 hectares of native vegetation and will forever change the landscape of the Pilliga.
The Pilliga Scrub is a highly significant area in terms of the state’s biodiversity. It is known to be the largest continuous remnant of semi-arid woodland in temperate New South Wales and contains many threatened animal and plant species such as the Pilliga Mouse, Black-striped Wallaby and South-eastern Long-eared Bat.
Email the Minister now and ask him to protect the Pilliga Scrub from coal seam gas.
Click here to read a photo blog on my recent trip to the Pilliga.
Black-striped Wallaby, a mostly nocturnal animal under threat from land clearing, and now, coal seam gas.
The gas field and the related infrastructure proposals (including two major regional pipelines) have been determined to be ‘controlled actions’ under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. This means they will require the approval of Minister Tony Burke and the Federal Department of Environment. There is also a proposal from Eastern Star Gas being referred for a LNG export processing facility at Kooragang Island at Newcastle.
At the NSW Government level, the projects are being assessed by the Department of Planning under Part3A. The Director General’s Requirements (DGRs) for the environmental assessments were issued in December 2010, but this was not made public until after the recent state election. You can view them here.
This is the biggest coal seam gas field ever proposed in NSW and the first ever LNG export facility in the state. However, it looks to be just the beginning. Eastern Star Gas, headed by former Nationals Leader and Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, has not revealed their full plans for the area. Coal seams extend underneath almost the entire Pilliga Scrub, and this initial proposal covers 85,000ha of a 500,000ha vegetation remnant. Extrapolating these figures, 550 wells now could mean as many as 3,000 wells in the future. You can read more about the EPBC referrals for the Narrabri Gas Field here at the Federal Environment Department’s website.
The four project components
- Development of a major coal seam gas field in the Pilliga Scrub
- A pipeline from Narrabri to Wellington (via Coolah)
- A pipeline from Coolah to Newcastle
- An LNG export facility at Kooragang Island at Newcastle
Existing activities
- Eastern Star Gas Limited (ESG) is the operator of the Narrabri CSG Joint Venture (NJV). Some 35% of the CSG interest in PEL 238 is strata titled to Santos. The Chairman of ESG is John Anderson, former National Party politician. The Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project is being developed by the NJV.
- ESG developed the Wilga Park Power Station in 2004, and supplied it with gas from the Coonarah Gas Field on private land to the north of the Pilliga.
- In 2006, a number of closely spaced well production pilots were developed in the Bohena and Bibblewindi fields in the Pilliga Scrub. In 2008, approval was granted for a gas pipeline from the pilot wells in the Pilliga to the Wilga Park Power Station and the expansion of the power station. The expected supply of gas from the Coonarah Gas fields did not eventuate, and the station has been utilising production gas from the pilot wells.
- The NJV currently has an MOU with ERM Power for the provision of gas to a new gas fired power station at Wellington over a 20 year period commencing in 2013.
Gas field development
The proposed gas field development area covers approximately 85,000 ha and includes Pilliga East State Forest, Bibblewindi State Forest, Jacks Creek State Forest, and Pilliga East State Conservation Area, plus some small areas of Crown Land and private land. The project aims to produce, process, compress and transport CSG from within Petroleum Exploration Licence 238, Petroleum Production Lease 3 and Petroleum Assessment Lease 2.
The project proposal includes the following:
- 550 production well sets, initially, on a 500m spacing
- 1,000 km of gas and water gathering systems (ie pipelines),
- access tracks,
- a co-located gas processing and compression plant,
- a centralised water management facility and
- ancillary infrastructure such as offices and workshops.
The gas production will clear at least 2,410 hectares of native vegetation. The area that is being targeted includes:
- A rich variety of heritage sites, including a rock shelter, burials, a grinding groove, scarred trees, open sites, stone artefact scatters and isolated finds.
- An Internationally recognised Important Bird Area.
- Known or likely habitat for 25 nationally listed threatened species and five nationally listed Endangered Ecological Communities.
- Known or likely habitat for 48 state-listed threatened species and five state-listed Endangered Ecological Communities including:
- Pilliga Mouse – known only from the Pilliga Scrub, this nationally vulnerable species has a total distribution of only 100,000 hectares. It will be severely impacted by the direct habitat loss, increased predation, and fragmentation leading to impacts on dispersal.
- Black-striped Wallaby – endangered in NSW, the northern Pilliga is the only known location of this species in western NSW. Requiring dense vegetation, it is extremely vulnerable to clearing, fragmentation and increased predation.
- Malleefowl – considered endangered in NSW and nationally vulnerable, has been recorded previously in eastern Pilliga. It is highly vulnerable to increased predation and fire.
- South-eastern Long-eared Bat – the Pilliga Scrub is recognised as the likely national stronghold for this vulnerable species (NSW and Federal). It prefers large, intact stands of native vegetation, and is at risk of fragmentation, loss of hollow trees, and uncovered saline ponds. Numerous other threatened bat species face similar risks from the proposal.
- Glossy Black Cockatoo – a very significant western population of the Glossy Black Cockatoo occurs in the Pilliga Scrub.
- Squirrel Glider, Koala and Eastern Pygmy Possum – which are all likely to be severely impacted by the direct habitat loss, fragmentation (and particularly its impacts on mobility and dispersal), and increased predation.
- Grey-crowned Babbler, Diamond Firetail, Hooded Robin, Speckled Warbler – and numerous other declining woodland birds for which the Pilliga represents a major refuge area. Those species are all threatened by increased fragmentation and predation.
- This area of the Pilliga Scrub is prone to severe, high intensity fires that burn very quickly through vast areas. The proposal to have a massive compressor facility located in the Pilliga, and 550 well production sets, represents a very serious fire risk and has the potential to render a regular Pilliga hot burn to a catastrophic level.
Water resources
The Eastern Star Gas proposal suggests that it intends to use lateral drilling rather than hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but it does not explicitly prohibit or rule out it out. There is inadequate assessment of the impacts on groundwater and aquifers, including the Great Artesian Basin. The proposal is extremely vague as to what it plans to do with the water that is produced as a by-product of the extraction process. Currently it states that it will use “a combination of storage and evaporation with tertiary treatment and discharge (environmental flows) for co-produced water management”. Produced water contains a range of naturally occurring substances that are likely to be harmful to the environment and human health. It is highly saline, and can also contain toxic drilling and fracturing chemicals. Eastern Star Gas commits to the development of a Water Management Strategy, but in the absence of such a strategy it is not possible to assess the potential impacts on biodiversity or the environment of produced water.
Take action to save the Pilliga Scrub
The Pilliga campaign will no doubt be the next big fight to protect biodiversity in NSW. The coal seam gas industry is expanding rapidly, and governments are largely taking the advice of industry on the environmental impacts.
As a first step, please send a message to the Federal Environment Minister requesting he reject the project under the EPBC Act. You can write your own personal email by contacting him here. Or simply fill out the form below to send him this generic message.
As the Greens environment spokesperson, together with my colleague Jeremy Buckingham as the Greens mining spokesperson, we’ll be building a campaign to save the Pilliga from coal seam gas and to protect its unique biodiversity. Check back here soon for more information on how you can help save the Pilliga Scrub.
Special thanks goes to Carmel Flint for her assistance in compiling this summary.
May 18th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
We must cherish our natural environment for future generations. Please don’t let the mighty dollar destroy this wonderful region.
May 19th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Thank yous so much for doing all you do and for having a message to send to the minister about fracking – it is a vital and deeply concerning activity.
It is however hard to find the email message on your site. It takes a lot of scrolling which many of us find a bit challenging. It would be good to have the action easier to find – either at the top, a separate page or button at the top.
Thank you again for taking this on and I dearly hope fracking doesn’t become prevalent as it is in the US.
May 19th, 2011 at 11:04 am
Practical action on environmentally sustainable policy is sorely lacking and needs to be put on the table to ensure our future in NSW and Australia. I would like to see the following measures included as part of a sustainable society:
• A commitment to major investment in large scale renewable energy projects
• A framework for planning laws that will lead to sustainable development
• Prioritise and incentivize public transport use within a carbon neutral to zero framework
• Initiatives to improve community understanding of the dangers of carbon pollution
• The opposition of gas as a transition fuel
May 19th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Thanks for the feedback Judith – we’ve added a link at the top of the page now so it should be easier to find now.
May 19th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Australia has some of the most incredible, unique and rare flora and fauna. Yet there are individuals in positions of decision-making power who would sacrifice it all for a profit.
This is unacceptable at any level. Heeding advice on environmental issues as provided by a mining conglomerate or an oil company will inevitably lead to disaster.
So what do we leave for our future generations? The natural beauty of a unique land in pristine condition, or an old photograph of what once was and the knowledge that it was lost so someone’s grandparents could obtain a supply of cheap energy to squander?
May 19th, 2011 at 7:02 pm
It is a shame I was not able to personalise the letter to stop coal mining in the Pilliga
May 20th, 2011 at 10:41 am
I drove through the Pilliga many yaers ago, its a remarkable forest area, amazing to find it whole and not cleared for farming. This area must be protected, in fact it should be declared a protected area, national park, whatever it takes.
May 20th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Please do not allow this sacred place in our beautiful country to be violated with fracking! Let’s not fall to GREED!!!
May 20th, 2011 at 11:21 am
NO FRACKING! NO GREED!! This planet and it’s water, flora and fauna are irreplaceable, DO NOT make a stupid mistake. Leave Pilliga as it is!!!
May 20th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
this is sorry time to see that all common sense has flown out the window (together with the clean water). We must, must stop it, and not only here, but globally.
If you need human chained to things, I’m up for it, we should all be up for it, all workers, their employers, mums, kids, stop everything get schools out there, The kids need to be involved, it’s their future too.
Do not spend any cash on anything for a day and go protesting where the operations began, the federal government HAVE to take us seriously.
I mean if Abbot and Gilard can change their tunes to gain popularity and please us, lets make them dance!
May 20th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Having travelled through (and stayed) this part of our State and having friends from the area I can’t accept that you would allow it to be further damaged.
May 20th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Cate, Please work to outlaw coal seam gas mining throughout NSW–we in the Illawarra are also very concerned that our fragile escarpment is in the line of fire of this destructive practice.
May 20th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
I used to live in Werris Creek, about an hours drive from the Piliga Scrub.
I have spent a lot of time camping and bushwalking in this area, and always felt privileged to be able to see the last of what was the interior of north/ western NSW.
I saw the Piliga as a Noahs Ark in what is now a vast sea of agriculture, the only place left for the last surviving animals and plants of that area. If this mining castrophe should go ahead, where will the animals and plant species go? Your conscience mightn’t have trouble answering that question, but to know they will go to the same data base as all the other extinct animals isn’t an answer I want to live with.
If this government is prepared to sell us out, and run the risk of killing us all with toxic water, then lets be prepared for what the people will ulimately do.
When the leaders of any country stop caring about it’s citizens, and instead immerse themselves in greed, the outcome is always the same…
Lets not let our country go the same way.
May 20th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Government must set a price on carbon so that ppl whose companies polute are made to pay appropriate compensation for their damage to our global commons. When our carbon sink tanks have an economic value, our remaining forests and woodlands will be protected and mass ecosystem regeneration can begin. Through this biosequestration we, as a nation, will be able to drawdown more pollution than we emit. This industry will generate the funds needed to expedite our national transition to 100% renewables. I believe that our politicians have the courage, capability and capacity to co-create this vital, earth saving new legislation NOW. I believe that our politicans can unite, stand up and enforce a shared line that ends the indecent, inhumane, unethical bullying of greedy polluters. Yes, our federal parliament can legislate for the good of all by giving big business the boundaries and real price certainity they need. Yes, big business can transition their investments to phase out fossil fuels and co-create world leading biosequestration and renewables industries. Yes a carbon price is possible. Make carbon history. Make it happen before the end of this financial year and we will love you forever
.
May 21st, 2011 at 2:53 pm
The fight for justice for the Pilliga and the Murray-Darling Basin are connected. Our ground water is being pillaged. These fights are for a future Australia shaped by notions of equity, fairness and living within our means and that includes, at the most fundamental level, our relationship to and with the land.
May 21st, 2011 at 4:29 pm
See http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/fracking-Gasland-natural-gas-shale-agriculture-pd20110520-H27QF?OpenDocument&src=kgb
More on the dangers of coal seam gas in USA.
May 21st, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Dear Mr Bourke
I ask that you take action to stop Eastern Star Gas’s proposed coal seam gas field in the Pilliga Scrub which is the largest continuous remnant of semi-arid woodland in temperate NSW.
Australia has one of the highest rates of land clearing in the world which is causing environmental degradation and destroying our country’s biodiversity upon which we depend for our very existence, both physical and spiritual, and for our economy. Drought, desertification, and increasing salinity are having dire effects on the rural sector; land clearing as will happen with Eastern Star Gas’s proposal, exacerbates such trends.
Clearing vegetation in the Pilliga will damage the natural environment, home to many threatened or vulnerable species including the Black-striped Wallaby, the Pilliga Mouse, and the Mallee fowl. An internationally recognised Important Bird Area is sited in the Pilliga and is habitat for endangered species including the Black Cockatoo and declining woodland species. Aboriginal sites in the area could be damaged.
Other concerns are the effect of the development on water supplies which
face contamination by the toxic chemicals used in gas extraction. Furthermore coal seam gas extraction presents a fire risk to an area that is dangerously fire prone.
I am very despondent about developments in Australia which are pushed ahead to make a profit at the expense of the natural environment. It is also high time that the Federal Government developed a population policy to take into account that Australia is an arid land with limited fertile soils and set a ceiling on our population growth. We cannot keep growing and consuming exponentially.
As the Federal Environment Minister, will you take action to halt the
Eastern Star Gas’s proposed development in the Pilliga Scrub?
Yours sincerely
Judy Kelly
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:53 am
We need to stop this kind of action going on just as we need to stop mining o the Liverpool plains
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Despite former NSW premier, Bob Carr’s attempt to seal off the Pilliga Scrub against all legitimate uses, killing off several saw-mills and destroying jobs and villages, some well-controlled logging continues, albeit in areas of light growth and thus of reduced commercial value, the Pilliga would contiinue to exist and thrive…until this latest threat of widespread clearing. This will of course be terminal and no recovery is possible.
However, since it is unstated whether there will be any ‘frac-mining’ gas extraction and with it destruction of the aquifers and water-table of the Pilliga and the valuable surrounding agricultural land, perhaps modern technology can at THE VERY LEAST enable the holes to be drilled using a greatly diminished footprint so the leave the forest otherwise undisturbed for oresent and future generations? If this idea would too greatly limit the profitability of the gas extraction…surely it would be better to leave well alone until some future solution arrives?
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:45 pm
We need someone to stand up, do some investigating, and find where all the ‘conflicts of interests’ are, from ministers at all level, to corporations, to unions. What has become of land for the future of the people.
May 28th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
I cannot believe (yes I can) that the thousands, no, millions of words littering the media by politicians about saving the environment, and yet nothing is ever done to actually save it. It is just a never-ending fight to try and stop the blatant excesses such as the Pilliga, and all the other areas being destroyed for what? Even our agricultural land and water are either being mined or sold off to other countries and our useless governments are facilitating these short-sighted actions. Our precious wildlife and their habitat are being trampled on and with it our heritage and a beautiful place for our future generations. Shame on all of us.
June 11th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Fraccing unbelievable to consider destroying such a vast area of precious woodland. And even more unbelievable that in 2009 NSW Dep Primary Industries documented under their Part 5 determination that a EIS was NOT required!
June 14th, 2011 at 12:13 am
As Australians, we must unite and stop this madness. We cannot drink gas and our wildlife cannot either.
July 4th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
I watched that GASLAND documentary of USA. I am horrified that their government does not care and I certainly dont want Austrialia to take ANY chances of damaging our ever precious groundwater/aquifiers. I requlary take holidays to the inland/outback (less people around the better) and have seen the problems with salinity along the Murray, even years later the problem still has not gone away. Our bush is precious, our agrigculture lands are precious, our groundwater is precious. Contamination is too easy. Being able to set your kitchen tap on fire, having fatal gas leaks and everyone turning a blind eye, people loosing drinking supplies – having to buy it in. Buying drinking water in droughts is stressful enough but having to do this forever is unforgivable. All in the name of GREED and being approved in the name of better for the Whole of the Country is abhorent. I love my sunburnt country – droughts, floods, famine, vast emptyness, deserts, ocean, excesses is Australia. I want it as it is for all generations to come, then we will be the LUCKY country.
July 30th, 2011 at 10:52 am
money for moneys sake this is ridiculess our enviroment is not something that can be sold off to big busines
August 2nd, 2011 at 7:24 pm
I’m from Melbourne and are disgusted to learn about the CSM up north. How does Gillard sprook Carbon control whilst allowing CSM ?
The last post on this site was early June, dont tell me you’ve thrown in the towell up there ? can someone bring me up to date l’m angry with time and energy up my sleeve. Is there a local meeting re Pilliga or have l missed the boat, forgive me we are a bit slow down here.
How can l assist.
Michael
August 7th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
This ‘proposed’ gas project makes me feel sick – is nothing sacred anymore?
What do our indigeneous friends think of this disgusting plan to destroy our pilliga scrub??
I hate greed and especially greedy ex-politicians
October 7th, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Thank you everyone for your attempts to protect this sacred land.
Just a bit of feedback on the generic message:
I understand that this message focuses on the Ministers obligations under the EPBC Act but heritage also forms part of the portfolio of his department. Being a proud descendant of the Gamilaroi people from the Wee Waa area, this land is very important to me and my family. I would ask that the cultural importance and heritage values of the Pilliga scrub to the Gamilaroi people are also included within this message. This area contains many traditional lore/ art sites that I have visited and learned from from a young age. I will also send my own private letter to convey this.
October 13th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
I am horrified to see what they have already done to date. We all need to stand strong together and united to push these greedy bastards out of our protected and sacred lands. This is the sacred land of the Aboriginals and the beautiful and endangered wildlife we all need to protect. How dare these inhumane mongers go in only to rape and contaminated our water, forests and destroy all that is beautiful. I can no longer stomach the horrendous damage these criminals are doing to our land. It is completely unforgiveable. We all need to unite and push them off our lands!
April 18th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
Good on you Cate. This is the first I’ve heard of this and I can’t believe such a unique wilderness forest could be cleared. It’s an outrage. If there is anything I can do to help stop this madness please email me.