OPINION: Flowback Fluid

The recent piece by Christian Pynsent could have been written by the Resources Industry itself as it painted the CSG industry as some wonderful saviour of the Hunter region. However it conveniently ignored the real issues, particularly in relation to AGL’s flawed project at Gloucester. What has happed at Gloucester is emblematic of what is wrong with the industry.

The NSW government trumpets that it has some of the most stringent Coal Seal Gas (CSG) regulation in the world. The AGL CSG project at Gloucester well illustrates that the claims of tight regulation are a nothing but hot air and spin. Conflict of interest is found at every turn.

AGL wants to construct 330 CSG wells close to the township of Gloucester. In 2011 they obtained conditional approval for 110 wells. The application put forward by AGL contained little detail about many crucial issues such as:

· The exact fracking method and its risks

· The proposed reverse osmosis plant to be used to extract salt and other chemicals from the waste water

· How the salt and contaminants would be disposed of

· How toxic flowback water and produced water would be disposed of

· Issues relating to BTEX

· Issues relating to migration between gaswells and surrounding land and water

· The proposed construction camp to house 400 workers.

· The precise nature of the geology of the Gloucester valley

The way the system works is that major projects such as Gloucester are approved with many details to be worked out as the project progresses by the process known as adaptive management. Once stage 1 was approved there was no legal provision for any more community involvement relating to many crucial matters.

When a CSG well is fracked toxic chemicals are used to break up the coal seams in order to release the trapped gas. These chemicals become mixed with underground water which itself contains salt, heavy metals and, in the case of Gloucester, BTEX. This mix must be pumped out and it is then known as flowback fluid which must be disposed of in some way.

In late 2013 AGL applied to the Office of Coal Seam Gas (OCSG) for permission to frack 4 gas wells. This is known as the Waukivory Pilot and entails fracking being carried out within a few hundred metres of homes.

In November 2013 Groundswell Gloucester wrote to the OCSG pointing out that the planning laws required AGL to provide a full EIS with its proposal and that there should be community involvement in the process. Despite promises to respond the OCSG never did anything but acknowledge the letter. Then in August 2014 it was announced that the government was changing the planning laws so that AGL would not have to provide an EIS.

The OCSG then approved AGLs fracking proposal without an EIS and without community involvement.

The government’s Fracking Code of Practice requires companies such as AGL to fully describe in detail how it will deal with its flowback fluid. All that AGL said was that it would take the fluid to an appropriate facility. It did not explain in any way how it would be dealt with. The OCSG approved AGLs application with this glaring deficiency.

We now know why AGL was coy about explaining what it intended to do with its toxic flowback water because it intended to dispose of it through Transpacific in Newcastle in direct contravention of 2 directives from Hunter Water.

When AGL were caught out they then sent it to the Hawkesbury region until the company there refused to take any more, at about the time that it was discovered that the water contained BTEX. Now AGL has nowhere to send its toxic mix and their latest plan is to leave it sitting in an open dam in the middle of a paddock in Gloucester. It has now been approved which puts the lie to Mr Pynsent’s claim that the NSW government has banned holding ponds. This was approved without any proper environmental or engineering study.

This whole sorry saga came about because the initial approval process was so deficient and the process for the approval of the Waukivory Pilot was so inadequate and because when considering AGLs application to frack the OCSG failed to make sure that the proposal complied with the Code of Practice and that AGL had a proper method to safely dispose of its toxic flowback fluid.

These events illustrate what is wrong with the laws relating to Coal Seam Gas. The community is largely locked out of the process and the so called stringent regulation of the industry is a farce. At each step the regulators seem to look for ways to help the mining company to get around the regulations.

The suggestion By Mr Pynsent that the Camden CSG project shows that the Gloucester project will be safe is absurd. Gloucester’s geology is complex and has no similarities to the geology at Camden. It is wrong to imply that there can be no connectivity between the fracked seams and the aquifers and surface water.

As for the suggestion that CSG will be a big employer, not even AGL has suggested that there will be many full time jobs after the construction phase is completed and those jobs need to be set off against the likely damage to the tourist and retirement industries.

Again Mr Pynsent adopts the tired argument that NSW needs to produce its own gas. If that argument had any merit then NSW would have to produce all its own pineapples, cars, iron ore, ships, computers etc etc etc. It is just nonsense.

The benign photo of a CSG well accompanying Mr Pynsent’s piece was also misleading. CSG wells are not visually unobtrusive and AGL wants permission for its Gloucester well pads to be 130m x 130m which is the size of two football fields. The photo also fails to show the vast network of necessary connecting roads and things like the central processing facility and reverse osmosis plant.

The Waukivory pilot has been beset with many problems such as leaking gas, BTEX in the water and well eating bacteria as well as flowback water issues. However no matter what happens the compliant NSW authorities and AGL seem determined to press on.

The CSG industry needs a complete rethink and the laws, regulation and administration of the industry needs root and branch reform. In the meantime there should be a moratorium on all CSG activity. It is a problematic industry which should be shunned by the Hunter.

John Watts

John is a barrister and member of Groundswell Gloucester.