Call for moratorium

THE call for a moratorium on all coal seam gas (CSG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) activities is growing in Gladstone after the ABC Four Corners report on Monday night.

The program detailed farmers' concerns about the Queensland Gas Company's (QGC), proponents of QCLNG on Curtis Island, lack of transparency and the possible contamination and water reduction of the Great Artesian Basin and the taking over of land for gas wells.

The report quoted a chemical management specialist and Mariann Lloyd-Smith an adviser to the federal government's National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), as saying chemicals linked to CSG production had not been evaluated by the national regulator and environmental applications by the QGC contained out-of-date and deficient safety data.

In response a QGC representative said ABC's Four Corners left an impression that "QGC have been other than forthright and honest in their dealings with landholders, that our operations are unsafe, and that our operations are compromising groundwater quality".

"We are confident our activities pose no unacceptable risk to health and safety or to the environment,” the representative said.

“Most of the issues raised in the program are not new, and were advanced by a few, long-standing and committed opponents to the industry whose motives are known to us but were not disclosed in the program. Some complaints by landholders are legitimate and are known to QGC, and we are working to rectify them.”

However, Curtis Island resident Cheryl Watson told The Observer that QGC was not going to come out and admit they were doing wrong.

“If the state and federal governments had done their job properly there would not be this genuine concern in the community,” Ms Watson said. “There needs to be a moratorium until the issue is sorted out. They had hydrologists and scientists on the program and if it was all wonderful they would be saying so, but when QGC is challenged they say the science is wrong."

The QGC representative said due to the claims made by the chemicals expert on the program, Ms Lloyd-Smith, QGC was doing a full audit of their processes and those of the company's contractors to reassure that QGC comply.

“We might add that the views of Ms Lloyd-Smith stretch the bounds of impartiality as her association with the National Toxics Network attests.”

For the full response to all questions posed by Four Corners to QGC go to The Observer website.