Staff reporters
A Monash University academic who has spent much of his life researching groundwater, has ridiculed claims by governments and CSG companies that there are no risks associated with the industry, saying they ‘would make Sir Humphrey Applebee proud’.
Dr Gavin Mudd, senior lecturer in the school of engineering at Monash University will deliver a lunchtime address today at the Lismore Campus of Southern Cross University.
He believes it is incumbent on the industry to prove its safety but that CSG companies are not even drilling bores to provide data either before or during gas exploration and extraction.
He said community concern about bubbling gas in Queensland’s Condomine River was a case in point.
‘I don’t think there’s been a report released by the authorities in Queensland but I find it very curious that as soon as that YouTube clip was released both the authorities and the industry denied that it could have been coal-seam gas. And then they announced their inquiry.
‘That sort of approach is what makes people in the community say we should be looking at these things based on good data. It shouldn’t be based on an assumption or a blind claim that it can’t be coal-seam gas.’
