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A group of angry farmers traveled from Coonamble yesterday to protest against coal seam gas extraction outside the office of Member for Dubbo Troy Grant but left unsatisfied with his response to their concerns.
The group said they felt compelled to visit Dubbo because Mr Grant is the Parliamentary Secretary for Natural Resources and because a petroleum exploration licence application (PELA) has been taken out for a 9400 kilometre area including Dubbo.
Coonamble farmer and Lock the Gate Alliance member Anne Kennedy said she felt Mr Grant was completely unresponsive to their concerns.
“I found it a particularly disappointing meeting. He basically said he is happy with Coal Seam Gas until we could show him an evidence to the contrary.
“I have loads of evidence, medical reports, environmental reports and I will send it all to him,” Ms Kennedy said.
“He said he will read it all so I hope he does.”
After the meeting Mr Grant said his main concern is to ensure the preservation of prime agricultural land but he still has a duty to look at other industries that can help to boost the region’s economy.
“Farmers should be entitled to have their income producing properties protected from any unreasonable risks,” he said in a statement.
“But if an activity can create more jobs for smaller rural communities and regional areas without undue risk then I would be derelict in my duty not to encourage that economic development.”
He reiterated the NSW government has stringent restrictions in place but lobbyists say the leak at the Santos coal seam gas extraction facility in the Pilliga State Forest shows it may not be enough.
Coonamble grain grower Mark Robinson was arrested at Pilliga last week after chaining himself to Santos drill rig gates and he urged Dubbo farmers and citizens to make submissions against the PELA.
He travelled to Sydney on Monday to meet with the Environmental Protection Agency to find out more about leaks at the Pilliga facility, which saw an aquifer polluted with uranium and heavy metals. Santos were fined just $1500 for the infringement but the EPA said strict conditions are in place to force Santos to fix the leak.
“We came away from that meeting quite disillusioned in the thought that a body that is labelled as the environmental protection agency is very weak in regards to what it can do about CSG mining,”
“That is the fact they will only respond once there has been a contamination spill or breach of the act.
“In the case of ground water, that’s too late. Its no good trying to put the genie back in the bottle. “There didn’t seem to be any sensible program or restrictions in place to safeguard our water.”
Mr Robinson said his grandfather was once a Country Party MP and he himself was a member of the Young Nationals and financial member of the National Party but feels let down by the party now.
“The National Party to date have been missing in action. They have been neglectful and they are just not listening to country people. This isn’t just a farmer thing. Where we’re from, groundwater is absolutely vital to the existence of towns and businesses. The National Party keep fobbing us off and saying ‘all the boxes are ticked, everything seems okay, move aside and let it happen’,” Mr Robinson said.
“What happened in the Pilliga shows that it’s not OK.”