The Greens call on the Queensland and federal governments to reject Arrow Energy\u2019s massive expansion proposal to drill hundreds of new coal seam gas wells at Hopeland in the Western Downs Region and lay 440km of pipelines in fertile farm land.
\nArrow Energy has applied to increase its number of coal seam gas wells at the Hopeland site from six to 286. The state government previously declared the area off-limits for future coal seam gas projects after land and groundwater was contaminated by the Linc Energy underground coal gasification disaster.
\nGreens Leader in the Senate and spokesperson for mining and resources, Senator Larissa Waters, said:
\n\u201cThe Linc Energy project was one of Queensland\u2019s worst environmental scandals.\u00a0The Queensland Government recognised the extent of damage when it set a no-go zone in the area for future coal seam gas projects and I call upon them to now reject Arrow\u2019s expansion proposal outright.
\n\u201cI also call on the federal government to reject Arrow\u2019s application as \u2018clearly unacceptable\u2019, given the obvious threats the project poses to the region\u2019s groundwater.
\n\u201cThe Greens will always stand up for our communities, our farmland, our water, and our climate in the face of corporate interests and mining magnates.
\n\u201cGovernments need to stop sacrificing our farmland to the highest bidder. We must protect our precious food-producing land, respect the rights of farmers and traditional owners, and stop our water from being contaminated and the climate crisis turbo-charged by leaking gas (fugitive emissions).
\n\u201cThat\u2019s why for the last 10 years I\u2019ve had a private members bill before the Senate to give landholders the legal right to say no to coal seam gas and to ban fracking, but the big parties who take donations from the fossil fuel industry keep voting against it.
\n\u201cNoting the Prime Minister\u2019s obsession with the misnomer of a gas-led recovery, I will be asking in parliament about the treatment of Arrow\u2019s huge expansion proposals and what it will take for the government to start protecting rural communities from the massive risk to water, the climate and farm land.\u201d
\n\u201cI also encourage all farmers to lodge an objection to Arrow Energy\u2019s expansion application to the Queensland government by 15 February.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s time state and federal governments listened to scientists, farmers and First Nations Peoples about the risks to land, water and climate. You can\u2019t eat coal or drink gas,\u201d concluded Senator Waters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Greens call on the Queensland and federal governments to reject Arrow Energy\u2019s massive expansion proposal to drill hundreds of new coal seam gas wells at Hopeland in the Western Downs Region and lay 440km of pipelines in fertile farm land. Arrow Energy has applied to increase its number of coal seam gas wells at … Continue reading “Arrow shooting wrong way with CSG near contaminated land”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}