NSW farmers and indigenous leaders are confronting mining giant Santos over its proposed Narrabri coal seam gas scheme at the company’s annual general meeting in Adelaide today (Thursday).
The group is furious at Santos’s plan to drill 850 gas wells throughout the Pilliga, a vast area near the north-west NSW town that includes native forest and farm land.
According to the Wilderness Society the proposal threatens recharge aquifers within the Great Artesian Basin which are an essential water source for outback Australia.
The Society says that the Environmental Impact Statement for the scheme demonstrated that the vast majority of the community were against the plan, with 97.8 per cent of the 23,000 submissions opposed. There were further howls of protest from the community whenSantos issued its response last month.
The farmers be joined at today’s AGM by South Australian locals who oppose Santos’s plans to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight.
Once again the attitudes of our governments (state and federal) are shown to be oblivious to the need to protect our water resources or the wishes of the people who will be most effected..
Of course we are all effected by these decisions, and for as long as economic considerations are put ahead of the environment we are all put at risk