A new environmental battleground is shaping up in Western Australia over the controversial issue of fracking. A small victory was won on August 20 when councillors from the Shire of Coorow, a group of small towns 250 kilometres north of Perth, voted unanimously to suspend all fracking activity in the area pending a full environmental assessment and public inquiry.
There has been increasing vocal community opposition to rapidly escalating gas developments in the mid-west region, close to the towns of Geraldton and Dongara, where a number of pilot holes have been approved close to water catchment areas. Plans to build a large scale gas project in the area in the next six to 12 months.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is a procedure of using heavy industrial boring equipment to inject a high-pressure solution of sand, water and untested chemicals in coal seam or shale gas deposits to release stored natural gas.
Sydney-based AWE is leading the industrialisation charge, drilling in the Irwin River area, east of Dongara as well as around the Eneabba area. It has plans to start widespread fracking in the area later this year once core samples have been analysed.
Norwest Energy also plans to frack in the Arrowsmith gas field north of Eneabba later in the year.
US oil and gas giant Halliburton is providing AWE with security, mining technology and support services for the projects.
The Drover-1 site east of Greenhead is the first horizontal fracturing project in Western Australia, an unconventional procedure that is far more environmentally damaging.
AWE reports a pilot hole has already been drilled and is being sampled. The borehole runs straight through an underground aquifer. Local farmers are reportedly worried about the borehole running through three fault lines and contaminating water resources used for agriculture.
AWE plans to begin horizontal fracking at this site in the next month. The company is also test drilling at Senicio-3 with plans to start fracking later in the year at the adjacent Senecio-4. Both sites are less than two kilometers away from a water catchment area which supplies the water for seven towns in the area.
Jo Franklin, senior coordinator for Frack Free Geraldton and Lock the Gate said AWE has made little attempt to consult the public. Community meetings were held during working hours and were “filled with AWE employees from out of town. AWE refused to answer public questions, only answering individual questions in private,” she said.
The company claims the project will benefit the local communities, but Franklin says in their most recent exploratory drilling, the company flew in all the necessary workers, with only two locals hired as security guards.
AWE regional manager David Guise told Franklin the project "definitely wouldn't progress without [a social licence]".
Franklin said the issue has divided her community, with tensions on both sides high as environmental concerns are weighed against possible financial benefits. She said "scathing articles have been written about the Frack Free Geraldton campaign in local papers" and group members have been targeted in personal attacks.
Frack Free Geraldton, which began in 2011, now involves nearly 500 people. The group runs community rallies, fundraising events, information nights, and distributes educational DVDs and brochures to raise awareness of the dangers of the planned projects.
Locals are particularly worried that their way of life, which relies primarily on agriculture and tourism, would both be heavily impacted by the expansion of fracking in the area.
The group’s Facebook page says fracking “could pollute our groundwater with toxic chemicals and threaten the health of the community.
“Shale gas fracking has the potential to threaten the water that family farmers need to keep their farms productive - shale gas fracking presents a real threat to WA food security.”
A fracking moratorium has been implemented in France and many states of the USA, with fracking also recently suspended in England citing evidence of the gas extraction process contaminating groundwater supplies and leading to seismic activity.
Fracking has been rapidly expanding in Australia at the cost of a once booming solar industry, with hydraulic fracturing set to begin in the mid-west in the coming months. Australia needs to come together against short sighted multinational mining corporations.
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