Saving the Farms !

Farmers are making a last ditch stand against Santos and that controversial gas field project at Narrabri. Santos recently won the approval of the NSW Planning Commission to implement natural gas wells on what is claimed to be the finest agricultural land in Australia

Local farmers formed what is known as the Enviromental Defenders Office and is taking Santos to the NSW Land and Environment Court to argue that approving this gas field incorrectly  ruled that gas is a low emission energy source compared to coal fired power.

This appeal also claims that the major planning  agency, the Independent Planniong Commission , found that it could not  address the greenhouse gases generated when third parties like power stations burned gas for energy - which is known as scope 3 emissions.

The Enviromental Defenders Office claimed the Commission should have followed the approach taken by the Land and Environment court when it rejected the application from the Rocky Hill Mine at Gloucester, which assessed the  impact of the scope 3 emissions on the environment and people of NSW.  The Comnmission said scope 3 emissions were outside Santos control and only required that direct emissions from the gas field - scope 1 and 2 - be offset.

This rather arcane argument masks the real reason the areas farmers are so concerned.   Efforts to reach and bring this undergournd gas to the surface will interfere with the water table that makes this agricultural land so productive.  Water movement beneath the ground is not fully understood and implementing a gas field will bring change that may be permanent.

The farmers contend that this region is already being forced to live with worsening droughts, ever increasing heat waves and extreme weather.  Anything that decreases food productivity in an increasingly hungry world will be a disaster.

Australia is one of the world's biggest exporters of natural gas and yet NSW is short of this fuel.  This doubt is putting the farms in the area at risk for its own supply.  We are in the process of building a gas hub at Port Kembla so that gas ships from foreign ports can dock in this country.  It seems that in the future we will export Australian natural gas and import what we use in the eastern states from competitors in the world market, and that makes no sense on economic grounds.

This Narrabri project has teetered on the edge of approval or rejection for a long time. This doubt is putting the farms in the gas area at risk because once that underground water is diverted it will impact permanent change on farm economic output.  It is a fact of life that farming is not compatable with gas production if we are to remain a food producing country.

That final decision on Narrabri will most likely decide whether farming of mining will take precedence as the primary industry of Australia.