Seventy-year-old knitting Nonna locks on in the Pilliga

Eve Jeffery

A seventy-year-old Rock Valley grandmother of 22 children has taken her knitting needles, some yarn and a trusty bike lock, and attached herself by the neck to a gate on a dusty road in the Pilliga.

Knitting Nanna or in this case, Knitting Nonna, Angel Dalu, was one of three Knitting Nannas Against Gas (KNAGs) who locked on to a gate in the hopes of halting work at a CSG waste water processing plant near Narrabri.

Nanna Angela who has lived at Rock Valley since 1992 after arriving in Australia from from in 1964 says she has never been arrested before in her life and until a few years ago never dreamed she would be.

Nonna Angela says she feels that the government has a lot to answer for in the betrayal of Australians. ‘The fault, the shame of this mess all belongs to this government because they have sold their soul to the devils of greed and corruption’, says Nonna Angela. ‘I want to know what their reason is, the rationale for this – I want to grab them by the hair and take them to the gasfield in Queensland and show how greedy people ruin this land and ask them why is this allowed to happen.’

Nonna says she became a KNAG after an event at Rock Valley where she saw DVDs and heard speeches and got a lot of information. ‘Then when I saw what was happening for myself, I was in shock. How can the politicians allow this?

‘I asked the Nannas what they did to help, to try and stop this. They told me they just go and sit and knit. And I said “Oh I can do that!”

The three KNAGs Nanna Theresa, Nonna Angela and Nanna Dom locked on at about 7am Monday and were ‘relieved’ of their post by police a few hours later. ‘I told the policeman he came too soon’, said Nonna. ‘He said he took his time and had his breakfast first. I told him next time have lunch and dinner as well. When the police asked us to move on, I said to them, “Oh. Are you going to look after this land now?” I don’t think they will. It’s up to us.’

Nanna who has also visited gas fields in other areas says she is prepared to do what she can to help the cause. ‘We were so busy at Bentley’, she said. ‘Now we are free so we are going to other places. Once a month we plan to help out where we can. ‘‘If the government can show me that the kids don’t get sick and the water in the Condamine doesn’t bubble and all the land isn’t ruined, that the evidence there isn’t true, that it isn’t real, then I will put down the needles. 

Until then, I sit and knit!’

The Nannas action is part of an escalating community campaign against Santos’ 850 well Narrabri Gas Project and the construction of the Leewood facility which is designed to treat up to one million litres of coal seam gas wastewater and then use it to irrigate crops on site.

Dominique Jacobs, a 51- year-old mother of seven from Gloucester, said ‘I’ve never been involved in protests in my life before the coal seam gas threat came to my home town of Gloucester. Now I’ve researched the risks and impacts and as a mother I cannot stand back and let this destructive industry roll out across our state; not in my valley in Gloucester, nor in the recharge area of the Great Artesian Basin here in the Pilliga forest,’ she said.

‘In Gloucester we saw the EPA suspend AGLs trial CSG wastewater irrigation project due to salinity build up. The advice given by the Department of Primary Industries and the EPA regarding this Santos Leewood facility suggests this CSG water irrigation project is also likely to fail. So why did Santos get approval for this risky endeavour?

Theresa Mason  48 year-old Nanna from Lismore said, ‘Santos is proposing the largest coal seam gasfield in NSW here in the Pilliga forest, an 850 well gasfield, which is actually only the beginning of their expansive plans to industrialise the productive agricultural region of North West NSW with seven coal seam gasfields. The Narrabri Gas Project in the Pilliga is only the start of their plans for thousands of CSG wells spreading out across this region,’ she said.