Santos fined for Coal Seam Gas Leak
The NSW government should intervene after Santos was fined for contaminating an aquifer in the state’s northwest, environmentalists and Labor say.
Environmental groups and the state opposition are calling for the NSW government to act after energy producer Santos was fined for contaminating a northwest NSW aquifer, reportedly with uranium.
The Environment Protection Authority issued a $1500 fine to Santos last month following the “pollution incident” at the company’s Narrabri Gas Field operations in the Pilliga.
Fairfax Media reports that the aquifer was contaminated with uranium at levels 20 times higher than safe drinking water guidelines.
The contamination is said to have been caused by water leaking from a pond, with lead, aluminium, arsenic, barium, boron, nickel and uranium detected in the aquifer at elevated levels.
Santos on Saturday said that elevated levels of uranium, arsenic and other naturally occurring minerals at the Bibblewindi site posed no risk to people or the environment.
In a statement, Santos said the site’s water treatment facilities put in by the previous owner did not meet Santos standards and were shut down in December 2011 shortly after the company took over from Eastern Star Gas (ESG).
The company also said it continued to undertake rehabilitation around the Bibblewindi ponds including transferring water to a new facility being built at Leewood with double-lined ponds.
However, Labor environment spokesman Luke Foley said the government should tear up an agreement with Santos to fast-track the coal seam gas project.
“The MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) should be torn up in light of the contamination,” Mr Foley said in a statement on Saturday.
“This contamination of the water aquifer is highly alarming.”
Greens NSW MP Jeremy Buckingham called the contamination “totally unacceptable” and urged all coal seam gas projects in NSW to be halted immediately.
“Here is definitive proof that unconventional gas, such as coal seam gas, pollutes aquifers with extremely toxic elements,” he said in a statement.
“Other aquifers cannot be put at risk of serious pollution.”
Community alliance Lock the Gate also urged the NSW government to halt CSG projects and investigate the Santos incident.
The group’s president, Drew Hutton, said the government should stop “all CSG exploration immediately, and conduct a far-reaching investigation into how things have gone so horribly wrong”.
The Wilderness Society’s national director, Lyndon Schneiders, said the incident showed no groundwater was safe from coal seam gas operations and questioned why Santos was only fined a “paltry” $1500 when the maximum penalty was $1 million.
“Santos has a long, tragic history of failure in the Pilliga forest,” he added.
The company was fined $52,500 in January for failing to report a spill that saw 10,000 litres of untreated toxic coal seam gas waste released into the forest.
Santos also distanced itself from that spill, saying it occurred under the previous management of ESG before Santos acquired the company in November 2011.
In a statement, a spokesman for Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner said the contamination happened when the project was “operated by a completely separate company in 2007 under the previous government’s flawed regulatory regime”.
“The Memorandum of Understanding commits the Santos Narrabri Gas field operations to the highest environmental standard,” he said.
“The project will only be approved should it pass the government’s stringent assessment processes.”
Source: AAP March 8, 2014
