Deborah Lilly, Mullumbimby
‘Liars, cheats and thieves’ said one farming couple about the coal-seam gas company who are laying a pipeline through their property in Queensland’s Western Downs. ‘We have endless meetings that do not achieve anything and they don’t do what they say. We’ve had eight or nine access officers; everyone comes with a different story every couple of months.’
These statements reflect the despair felt by many farmers in the Darling Downs and Western Downs regions that I have been visiting in the last week. I went to see for myself what living with the gas rush might be like.
An incessant line of trucks rumble along taxpayers’ roads at high speeds. Sometimes the machinery they carry is so wide it takes up two lanes. Backroads are busy with shiny white utes and fancy fourbies and tanker trucks; all this activity is unnerving. And then there are the pipelines, 42 inches of steel from China sitting in a deep trench in a swathe 40 metres across, all the way to Gladstone. Delays of months or years occur because the pipes are faulty and I saw and smelt the rotting carcass of a calf that had fallen into the trench.
CSG companies target the old, the needy and naive first of all because they can get a foot in the door. One old lady signed up even before negotiating compensation.
So please go to csgfreenorthernrivers.org, take the pledge and watch their new five-minute clip. Talk to your neighbours and watch the DVD which is available free at Santos. CSG is a cancer that came unawares in Queensland. Let’s stop the spread here.