Letters to the editor

No doubt the ones attempting to stop the pipeline would be happy to be paying less for their energy, as would their fellow farmers. The story has the pipeline going “near” the famous Haddon Rigg stud, not through the homestead, but simply “near”. There are roads “near” the homestead and through the Macquarie Marshes and no doubt there are some that pass through the other properties mentioned, but that’s okay.

The pipe is welded every 12 metres; so what? There are pipes going through and under every town and city in Australia. I had a railway going through my farm a mere 80 metres from the house. It was welded every 100 metres and carried 6000-tonne trains, but none derailed or crashed into my house. I have never heard such a concerted load of rot. I can only think the Greens are running the show, dreaming up as they do the flimsiest of excuses to stop progress.

The last thing they want is cheap energy and threats to their inefficient and spasmodic renewables. It seems the farmers in the story are willing accomplices in making Australia poorer. I am bemused as to how digging a metre-deep trench would require destocking 10,000 sheep, unless of course the only useful fences are the boundary.

LAWRIE AYRES,

Wingham.

MOST realise unconventional coal seam gas (CSG) mining in the Pilliga can’t proceed without the APA pipeline and are therefore one and the same. Congratulations to Rex Wilson and the Warren Council for joining the Moree, Coonamble, Warrumbungle and Gilgandra shires who also have the vision to recognise the devastating impact CSG mining in the Pilliga will have on the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). In the 1980s and ‘90s the forestry industry was terminated in the Pilliga State Forest to protect it and it is now also recognised as the most critical of the three recharge zones for the GAB.  The “cap and pipe the bore scheme” was introduced to protect the “critical resource” of the GAB, including an embargo on commercial bores. The Macquarie Marshes were destocked to make a wetlands nature reserve and now commands Ramsar status.

Santos plans to sink 850 CSG wells into the Pilliga recharge zone extracting as much as 37 gigalitres of water (yes, 37,000 million litres) bringing with it 430,000 tonnes of toxic salt with no disposal plan. They’ve already contaminated an aquifer with uranium 20 times over accepted limits and had several evaporation pond leakages in the exploration phase alone. APA wants to run a pipeline from the Pilliga, through the Castlereagh, Macquarie (Marshes) and Bogan floodplains, disregarding that most of the soils in between are vertisol and therefore unstable. What was once worth protecting is now disposable?

Australia has a gas availability crisis created by bad policy, not to be confused with a shortage. When government and industry gave Australia’s gas away they failed to protect our own supplies. They also locked us into world pricing. No vision then, or now. All the independent opinions are waving big red warning flags, but industry and government attempts to either discredit or silence these opinions. Let’s see a live debate on national television between their experts and the independent experts, not all the ex-politicians who now work for mining companies (or the ones in jail).  Debate the facts not the spin. Include agriculture’s contribution to jobs and GDP from the land above the GAB.

APA should recall Santos’ problems with farmers and environmentalists locking on to machinery in the Pilliga and the impact it had on Santos’ daily costs and share price. Then consider what it might face when it attempts to access private property, especially that of the protestors. No doubt they’ll use the cuddle first, frighten second, terrify third policy in the handbook as they attempt to gain access, but rural people will not accept being “collateral damage”. The few that think it won’t affect them will begin to realise it will.  “World’s best practice” has given Queensland dry and/or polluted bores, rivers and creeks bubbling with gas. If those elected to represent the people fail, what next?  “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”. I’m sure APA will see more than enough resistance.

DAVID CHADWICK,

Coonamble.