[author]Chris Dobney[/author]
Lismore City Council has voted to impose a moratorium on gas mining and exploration on council land – and the gas miner Metgasco is anything but happy.
The council voted six to five to reject staff recommendations that it didn’t have the power to stop CSG exploration and imposed the moratorium at its meeting on Tuesday night.
Metgasco, which had previously informed council of its intentions to conduct ‘low level’ seismic testing at Jiggi, reacted angrily to the motion.
The company’s CEO Peter Henderson told local media, ‘Lismore council might wish to question if it is spending ratepayers’ money in a responsible manner and acting in the best interests of the community’.
500 gas wells
Mr Henderson told the Greens’ state MP Jeremy Buckingham last week that an estimate of 500 gas wells in the Northern Rivers ‘would be in a reasonable range’. The miner was being grilled at the parliamentary committee inquiry in to CSG mining in Sydney.
After several attempts at dodging the question on how much gas it would need to make its proposed Lions Way pipeline viable, Mr Henderson was eventually asked to answer the question by the chair.
A Metgasco spokesperson has previously told Echonetdaily the Lions Way pipeline proposal was ‘hypothetical’, even though the company had a promotional page on its website devoted to it.
