Metgasco workers had a rude surprise this morning when they arrived at a site in Casino to begin seismic testing works.
A group of coal seam gas protestors had gathered outside entrance points to the work site in an attempt to disrupt testing and prevent truck movements.
“We are making life difficult for Metgasco because Metgasco plan to make life difficult for us, Northern Rivers people don’t want to see a toxic industry in our region.”
Despite the blockade, trucks were able to gain access to the site.
“We don’t think its very responsible behaviour but they are free to protest all we are asking is to be given the right to do the job we are legally entitled to do.”
The protestors plan to remain at the site as long as the works continue.
The coal seam and shale gas industry has no license to operate worldwide because the people know that the gas rush for the Chinese dollar is at the expense of their homes, their fresh water and their agricultural land. It will not be going ahead very fast from now on because it is being exposed for what it is. A lie. Big oil and gas have their reckoning approaching.
I am very grateful to the people who put an effort in to stopping this deplorable industry. All the proof of it’s dangers are available for anyone who takes a bit of time to investigate. ‘I’m just doing my job’, is not an excuse for do things that destroy mother nature, or for any other evil act. The mining companies continue to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the people, and politicians are representing them instead of their voters. Without protesters we would not have the whale-watching industry of today, we would have no forest left, we would have even faster degradation of our country generally.
I agree with Charles Grant. There is widespread opposition in the region to coal seam gas, and the people involved in this industry would do well to reconsider how they will respond to legitimate protest in the future. This issue has united many sectors of the community together as one voice – saying “no thanks!”.
This industry must be stopped. I know first hand of the suffering of people living near gas fields in QLD. Their children are sick, they have constant headaches and rashes and one friend’s bore is ignitable, even though he has not gas wells on his property. His neighbors agreed to gas, but now his property is unsellable, and toxic. Stop the madness NOW.
We are now at the point of NO REGRETS.Tell your neighbours,friends and workmates.If the gas industry is not seriously stopped here now,then you will all be living in a gasfield with sick children,poisoned water and foul air.
BE WARNED.This is REAL.The industry’s own data tells us that 7% of gaswells fail at initial start up.After that the rate goes to about 40% failure at five years,and thence,every well has the potential to have bacteria destroying concrete and seepages and spillages into underground water.Then there are overflowing holding or evaporation ponds in high rain events,Just flow directly in to creeks and streams and across low lying land.
Or perhaps you will enjoy the flaring wells which burn gas 24/7-boy do they look pretty(who knows what toxic chemicals are released).
AND to top it all off,if you live anywhere near these gasfields,your property value will decrease to the point of being UNSELLABLE.
How do you think a tourism industry will fare in a GAS climate?
Truly,everyone in the Northern Rivers who loves and appreciates where we live MUST do something NOW>write/phone/blockade etc.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.It becomes too late once they start.
Be sure NOT to tell everyone that flaming water facets have been ongoing for decades and decades.
And do NOT tell everyone that the gas industry was discovered by those flaming facets.
And do NOT tell eveyone that methane in NOT toxic and is the cleanest of all fossil fuels.
And do NOT tell people in the city to READ the signs on city buses about buring the clean fuel.
And do NOT tell people that the commerical quanities of gas does not come out of aquifers.
And do NOT tell people that these businesses have real people working for them. And these real people have families that want to eat and live. And that these real people rather work than live on the dole.
Please please, help keep the secrets!!!
@ Scott – Why is that people who are newly employed in the gas industry think that their jobs should take precedence over everyone else’s and why do they like to pretend that people, who are against the prospect of living in a gas field, are all unemployed? My suggestion is that they (you )get a decent job that doesn’t destroy the lives of others. There are no flaming faucets in Australia but there are now flaming wells and a bubbling river, both located in to middle of the oldest CSG field in Australia. These incidents are directly related to the dewatering of the aquifers to release CSG and are not naturally occurring. If Coal Seam Gas is so “clean and green” there would be no need to advertise its “benefits” on the sides of buses as they would be self evident. Methane is a greenhouse gas. A methane emission will have 25 times the effect on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Methane is not toxic; however, it is extremely flammable and may form explosive mixtures with air. This isn’t something any sensible person would want 100 metres from their house, as is the current rule with pipelines and wells.