Letter to the Editor …
In the website The Conversation it is stated that: the national water overseer position will be cut at the end of this year. Whilst Australia has made some big gains around how we manage our water in the last decade, there’s still work to be done, and Stuart Khan argues regional Australia could be left vulnerable to drought.
By removing the overseeing and therefore protection of water resources, is the federal government taking the first step towards clearing the way for open slather land-based gas mining? At the moment the gas industry is supposed to adhere to water protection legislation. Without a national overseer, Australian water supplies and agriculture will be vulnerable to the same fate as has occurred in America.
In the USA land-based drilling for gas is does not have to abide by the laws of the Clean Water Act. There is no pressure for the gas industry in the USA to protect water resources; pollution of aquifers, rivers and streams has resulted, with no penalties to the polluters. People in the USA have no real means to protect their water supplies and the long-term sustainability of agriculture and human health, which are dependent upon clean water.
A blind dog could see that the buying up of Australian land by foreign countries and corporations, or by Australian drilling and mining companies. is a first step to ensuring that unimpeded drilling for gas can take place on that land. In the Warrnambool Standard last week it was stated that the now empty Glenormiston Agricultural College could be purchased by the Chinese as somewhere to house Chinese employees who wish to study agriculture and work on the land that the Chinese are buying up. The college could also be used to house workers for that land.
Under trade agreement rules it may be possible for foreign corporations and other countries that buy up Australian land to use that land however they wish; this could include the drilling for gas, and as people in Australia now know, deep drilling and fracturing of rocks up to four kilometres below the surface can result in pollution of a whole aquifer with uranium that is in that rock.
Pollution of a whole aquifer with uranium has already taken place in New South Wales, thus rendering the water too dangerous to be used for human or animal consumption or for irrigation. There are absolutely no methods for removal of uranium or the hundreds of chemicals now used by the gas industry, since the gas industry’s new methods of fracking have been developed in recent years.
At a time of election, we need to be aware of what is happening behind the scenes in both the Labor and Coalition parties. Neither party has raised a voice of protest about the fact that China is being allowed to buy up Victorian farmland. Neither Labor nor Coalition has really taken on board the consequences of such land sales. Neither party has admitted not only the risk but the certainty that land-based deep drilling and fracturing of rocks for gas will result in water pollution from uranium and/or chemicals, as has happened in the USA and New South Wales.
If either Labor or the Coalition had the electors’ interests and health in mind, they would be preparing legislation to ban land-based gas mining. They would also legislate to prevent foreign takeovers of Australian land. Both will ultimately be disastrous for the economy.
Gillian Blair, Panmure, Vic.
