Left: CBG member Margaret May (right) and friend at no CSG rally in November.
Right: Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, with Margaret May at the rally.
A national week of action against Coal Seam Gas (CSG) took place in mid October, planned by the national Lock The Gate Alliance. The two largest protests in NSW were in Murwillumbah and in Sydney on 13 October when about 1000 people, including Greens leader Christine Milne gathered at Sydney Park, St Peters to form a human sign saying “Stop CSG”.
The NSW government has released its new regulations to govern the coal seam gas extraction (“CSG”) industry while renewing exploration licences and lifting its moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing process. CSG is permitted in the Sydney Basin including water catchment areas as well as in rural and agricultural lands. By renewing CSG across Sydney suburbs and in drinking water catchment, the state government is allowing the CSG industry to endanger those resources.
Much more research needs to be done to determine the long term environmental effects of CSG and the wastes it produces before this industry should be allowed to expand.