Fracking

Commenting on the valid concerns brought to the public's attention by NSW Greens MP Cate Fraehrmann a Ms Glenda McLoughlin of Metgasco seeks to allay public concerns with the glib patter one has come to expect of Prime Minister Julia Gillards spin doctors.

"We consider that we are highly regulated by the NSW Department of Primary Industries," Ms McLoughlin said.

So who are Metgasco ? Judging by their board, they are merely a shirt worn by Esso which itself is a shirt worn by energy giant Exxon - Mobil -developers in conjunction with Chevron of the huge Gorgon Gasfield off the coast of Western Australia.

Not to put too fine a point on t

his statement, why is the Department of Primary Industries, which exists to promote business the appropriate licensing authority,yet lacking the expertise to assess or monitor ecological considerations. The DPI's administration of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act does seem akin to allowing the proverbial Fox to babysit the chickens or still in NSW, The Department of Communities to take responsibility for the appropriate care of children. As Ms Fraehmann correctly asserts, responsibility for Environmental Concerns should correctly be monitored by the Environment Department.

Other areas actively protesting Coal Seam Gas Mining:

Liverpool Plains (Narrabri area,NSW) :: Caroona Coal Action Group

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From The USA: Despite the Environmental Protection Authoritys most stringent monitoring: Massey Lawsuit: Over 700 Allege Mining Company Poisoned Their Water With Coal Slurry

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Inadequacy of Australian Laws:

The Effectiveness of Australia's State Territory and Federal Environmental Protection laws relating to extractive industries needs to be viewed in the context of the 2009 PTTEP Montara Oilspill disaster. Montara, a marine platform operation suffered a cataclysmic failure which resulted in loss of dr

illing rig and a three month oilspill which took 3 months to successfully plug.

A spill which polluted 24000 square kilometres. A spill which was accorded only cursory government monitoring, with the relevant governments concerned largely relying on well operator PTTEP for information. The Australian Governments ability to effectively monitor the effects of that spill may be laid bare in a report which Federal Minister Martin Ferguson has refused to release despite its presentation to him in June 2010. In terms of cleanup work, The Australian government seems content to acquit that exercise in the confines of a committee room and eventually on the floor of parliament- but not a scerrick of cleanup activity in the affected pristine Northwest Shelf area.

In Contrast, the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oilspill for which BP America were castigated had a considerably higher degree of public scrutiny forced by intense media and activist scrutiny and a very concerned Louisianan governor @BobbyJindal supported by his very effective @GOHSEP unit. I am among the minority who take the view that despite a colossal error with fatal human and devastating environmental consequences, BP stuck around and still today take quite expensive measures to clean up their mess -at a substantial cost to that company, which has sold off sizable assets to pay for the operation.

The comparison is a stark illustration of the processes of monitoring and mitigation missing in the Australian extraction equation. Environmental Compliance adequacy, monitoring mitigation and prevention were proven to be inadequate at Montara as a hapless daisy chain of government agencies including scientists hamstrung by bureaucrats waited on disaster perpetrator PTTEP for information, which could have been as accurate as PTTEPs own physical, financial and legal constraints dictated. Were they? We don't know,because our Australian government failed to have adequate checks balances and preventive measures in place.

Our Australian governments lax pro-extractive laws not merely permit environmentally risky extraction processes, they virtually dictate that directors use risky processes or risk shareholder wrath at the unnecessary expense of safer technologies. The Australian Government received the report which they commissioned into the Montara Oilspill in July -but still choose not to release it while continuing backroom deals on new oil and gas exploratory and production licenses with the perpetrators of some of the worst ecological disasters this world has ever seen.

The "Clean Energy" Blindside :

The Government Coal and Gas Industries are keen to point out the relative merits of Gas vs Coal fired energy. Admittedly, there are emissions reductions. However, left completely out of the discussion is the BeyondZero option of renewable energy generation, which has a goal of zero emissions power generation in ten years.

Listen to the 2 videos below , compare and decide for yourself which option is cleanest.

Heres the Coal versus Natural Gas discussion by the Ontario,Canada Government...

versus the Australian developed Beyond Zero, zero emissions plan to capture renewable energy from wind and solar generation....

Western Australia:James Price Point : Gas Hub ::Breach of Trust

Update from James Price Point proposed Gas Hub site:

Despite assurances given to the leader of the aboriginal clans opposing the establishment of the proposed Gas Hub by Woodside that they would not attempt to occupy James Price Point prior to the group leaders return from Sydney, On Monday morning a Woodside/Hagstrom convoy attempted to do precisely that -move onsite.Trucks, drilling equipment, four wheel drives, large trucks with tanks and pumping systems, a semi trailer carrying two-tracked machines, water tanks, fire trucks and ambulance plus heaps of security personnel arrived at the Barred Creek Turnoff to be confronted (and turned away) by a small but committed group comprising mainly elderly women and babies.

Western Australian Premier Brumbys intention to compulsorily acquire the land "to create much needed aboriginal jobs" is a complete beatup. Local aboriginals already enjoy among the highest levels of employment in Australia.Many own their own businesses-in the tourism industry which could be irrepairably affected by the proposed Gas Hub.

If Woodside do not consider it necessary to act in good faith when dealing with the local community then they should expect that the local community would not want them to be there.

http://bk-bkpricespoint.blogspot.com/

http://www.savethekimberley.com/barnett_gashub_email.php

Australia's Wild Wild West #nogashub

The Montara Wake Up Call

We need only look as far as the PTTEP Montara Disaster of 2009 to understand the possibility for UnderSea Oil and Gas Extractive processes to depart drastically from their operational optimum performance, becoming a major threat to the environment in places which are exceedingly difficult to measure or mitigate.

The Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett has recently initiated processes designed to disposess the Kimberley Land Council of land which a consortium of some of the worlds major petroleum extractive companies wish to use to facilitate their multi-billion dollar gas hub designed to connect the massive Browse offshore Gasfield to their supply chain.

The Premier's aggressive and intimidatory stance against the moderately controlled KLC mirrors the cavalier treatment of Peru's indigenous peoples rights by that countrys President Pinera, whose government used police to massacre indigenous protesters in Bagua Peru in 2009. Premier Barnett's publicly issued statement of intent to commence compulsory acquisition proceedings "because of the premiers frustration with delays" is typical of the jackboot diplomacy Australian colonial governments have applied to Australia's indigenous people since arrival, pushing them roughly aside to serve other interest groups.In the case of the James Price Gas Hub, the interest group is a consortium almost exclusively made up of perpetrators of among the deadliest and most destructive petroleum extractive disasters in the country.

Chevron is well known for its subsidiary Texaco's cavalier ecovandalism in Ecuador and under Chevrons stewardship the subsequent use of legal loopholes to delay the $US27 billion cost of remedial work. Chevron also has a long history of corporate piracy. Chevron is focussing much of its future growth expectation on the Western Australian Offshore Gas Fields.

Who can forget BHP-Billiton's OK Tedi in remote Papua New Guinea as a bright example of corporate responsibility. BHP-Billiton are another partner.

Do I need find links to BP Americas Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oilspill?? To their credit they continue to mitigate.The overall process however exposed multiple layers of inadequacy in corporate and government systems, with multiple points of failure identified.

Australia needs to take heed of the lessons of Montara, which was never properly mitigated. Government silence and exhaustive parliamentary inquiries miss the point that not one drop of PTTEP oil was spilt on the floor of their committee room, and they are highly unlikely to find contamination there. However, as with the Deepwater Horizon Oilspill, vast underwater plumes were found after the US Government had declared that all the oil had "disappeared. The US Government was forced to restate its position. Following the successful Capping of Montara all monitoring and remediation stopped. We simply said out of sight out of mind and left our mess there. The PTTEP drilling rig is said to have been a cheaper to use, higher risk 30 year old technologically superceded model, which the company perhaps even had a duty to their shareholders to use in preference to the safer later and more expensive options. They were certainly entitled to use this dangerous dinosaur rig because Australias lax legal regime permitted them to.

Companies such as Chevron target jurisdictions with the weakest compliance regimes worldwide as providing the most profitable extractive options. Australia fits the bill perfectly

US fine BP:Call for Globally equitable application

The reported $30billion plus fine on BP for the Gulf #Oilspill amounts to an elevated level of hypocrisy by the US.The fine appears to be imposed on top of cleanup costs and compensation payments.It may well impact BPs (or its insurers) ability to fund continued compensation, mitigation and cleanup operations.If it is fair and just that BP is to be so penalised then Chevron should also be hit even harder for the mess it continues to deny responsibility for in Ecuador.The ecovandalism there is intentional and has severely impacted the health and capacity to live for the primarily indigenous local population affected.Mitigation & reparations for this travesty calculated at $27billion now appear vastly under-calculated in the wake of Deepwater Horizon.Not forgetting Nigeria, where a virtual whose who of the oil mister bigs have effected spillages of the scale of Deepwater Horizon on a virtually annual basis. These are US and EU companies wilfully taking advantage of weak home legislation in the countries of extraction to continue to deploy archaic equipment and stone aged practices. These practices can be most effectively curtailed by 1st world nations penalising extractives for their international ecovandalism, taking responsibility as the consumer nation. Taking action against a company which has put its hand up and its wallet on the table as BP has done in the Gulf,while feigning ignorance of the unacceptable methods used globally is wrong,unethical and smacks of political expedience.