Report shows gas risks to Condamine alluvium

IRRIGATORS and communities on the Darling Downs are going through a lengthy process that will ensure their groundwater irrigation use is sustainable.
The scientific data has told them the extractions from the Condamine alluvium have been greater than the recharge rates to the underground aquifers and the resource has been depleted over the last 40 years.
They’ve suspected this when they have seen bores slowing down, especially during peak use times during summer.
The alluvium is not the biggest or the only source of water on the Downs, but it is nonetheless an important and reliable resource for irrigators, as well as providing drinking water for many towns.
Given the importance of this water, irrigators have been willing to reduce their use of the aquifer, in some cases by up to 60 percent. They are expecting significant cuts to entitlements when the current water resource plan is finalised.
But the implications of a new report suggest that irrigators’ good work striving for sustainable extractions could be undone by coal seam gas activities causing water to be drained from the aquifers.
This report, commissioned by Central Downs Irrigators Limited and conducted by hydrogeologist John Hillier, indicates that there is a link between the alluvium and the Walloon coal measures.
This should trigger a new series of alarm bells for the rapidly-expanding CSG industry.
At the surface, irrigators are reducing their water use. Underneath, the effects of dewatering the Walloon coal measures for CSG may drain the water from the alluvium into the coalseams.
This would significantly impact on farm businesses and farmland, the very same land that the government is starting to recognise as strategically important to be used for agriculture to ensure the future prosperity of this State.
But a good strategic cropping land policy only goes halfway to doing a decent job if it avoids looking at water supplies, as is currently the case.
Mr Hillier has called for more data to allow the calculation of the volumes of groundwater that could move from the alluvium to the coal measures as a result of GSG projects.
All levels of government need to take this report seriously and act now.
It is not simply enough to shut down the underground coal gasification project at Kingaroy and then allow CSG to continue at its current breakneck pace.
Looking closely at this report will show that there are issues just as significant for the alluvium as water contamination. Drainage and damage to the aquifer are just as important.
We also expect that the sustainable diversion limits to be defined in the Basin Plan for the Condamine-Balonne will hit primarily the groundwater entitlement.
While irrigators understand these implications of the Basin Plan, they are also frustrated that the mining companies seem to be able to wash their hands of participating in it.
To date, CSG water extraction has been exempted from the water resource planning process, even though it is estimated that the industry will extract up to 350,000 megalitres per year.
Do the government and gas companies truly believe that extracting such a quantum of water is sustainable, given it would be removed in addition to current extractions that are already above the recharge rate?
Within the space of a few months, farmers will be looking closely at the guide to the Basin Plan and the draft strategic cropping land policy.
It is a great shame that at this stage both of these documents are unlikely to do anything to address the concerns and planning implications with the looming CSG avalanche of development.