Watch for the 1,999 hectare footprints

The big four coal seam gas companies in Queensland have had their major projects approved. By the evidence presented firstly by the Courier Mail newspaper and secondly by ABC TV Four Corners program the approval process left much to be desired. To learn more of these events read an earlier post on this site, Gas leak response. Recently the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) cleared any wrongdoing in the approval process mostly by a neat side step of that matters raised '… do not fall within the CMC’s jurisdiction.’  For further reading go to this highly referenced and detailed report of what has occurred in the online Independent Australian article, How the Queensland Government fracked the State

Despite its many flaws the big projects to this point were subjected to an approval process. They had to negotiate an Environmental authority (EA) with the government. They hired consultants to prepare mind blowing large Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) which were open to a public review and submission process. EIS look at more than just environmental impacts; they also include impacts on the likes of cultural heritage, transport, agricultural production and the very important underground water impacts. Each coal seam gas company are developing tenements they hold outside the areas approved within their current projects and to bring each of these new areas into production one would have thought that they would need to be scrutinised for any major impacts on conservation values or top farming soils etc.; but apparently not.

Take the example of the British Gas owned QGC project, Queensland Curtis Liquid Natural Gas (QCLNG) project which was approved for mapped area that included 6,000 gas wells, CSG water storage ponds, linking roadways, linking gas & water pipes, compressor stations, processing plants, accommodation camps, export gas pipeline and a LNG plant on Curtis Island.

The first photo (above) was taken at the end of November 2013 shows the QGC Woleebee Creek processing plant under construction; a massive piece of industrialisation lifting out what was once quiet cattle paddocks west of Wandoan in what was once amongst Australia’s best beef fattening country.

On the 6^th November the Australian Financial Review ran an article, BG seeks clearance for extra 400 CSG wells, in which it was announced:

“BG Group is seeking environmental approval to drill an additional 400 coal seam gas wells near Wandoan to help maintain gas flows to its $US20.4 billion LNG export project in Queensland once production from the initial batch of wells starts to tail off.”

“A BG spokeswman said the area involves about 50 landholders and the construction of up to three gas compression facilities, water and gas gathering pipelines, access roads and laydown areas in addition to the wells.
“The development is not expected to have any significant environmental impact, with about 94 per cent of the total permit area – or about 123,500 hectares – cleared of trees and used mainly for grazing,” he said.”

“Also included in the project are access tracks, accommodation camps and gas and water gathering lines, as well as storage ponds and pumping stations. Gas will be treated in processing plants being built as part of the initial project.”

 
 
 
 

 

The AFR article does say that this new smaller area to the existing QCLNG project is seeking environmental approval; but what approval?  According to a presentation given by Rory Ross at Shine Lawyers CSG information seminar at Wandoan on the 4^th December, any state approval will be no more than a tick and flick process with no public notification or public input. Apparently there is a trigger for any project with a footprint of above 2,000 ha to be subjected to scrutiny but no so those below. QGC doesn’t consider the project requires an EIS as it has determined that it has a 1,400 ha footprint.

QGC has to seek approval from the Commonwealth under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC). I’m yet to find a link to the application but if you type into a search engine these words - EPBC QGC Detailed description of proposed action - you should find a PDF file to download.

The second image (above) is sourced from this application, the green line shows the boundary of the new ‘400 well’ area; the light grey lines shows the pre-existing farm property boundaries for the “about 50 landholder’s”.  On the map if you look to the south of the green boundary to old farm boundaries marked in red, these are farms now owned by QGC and amongst them you will see a gasfield area in green text named, Woleebee creek; this is the location for massive the processing plant as shown in the first photo.   

But how available is the Commonwealth process to public notification or input?  At the Shine Lawyer seminar the audience was informed that the application was opened to public submissions for 10 working days on the EPBC website before the document was removed from the site. Apparently the environment minister, Greg Hunt, has determined that the application has to be subjected to further additional scrutiny but to find this information is not easy.

Currently any scrutiny of these additional smaller areas is held by a thin thread of the EPBC act and specifically the water trigger amendments introduced by the former government to appease the former independent MP Tony Windsor. There have been rumblings for the water trigger removal and one vehicle for doing so could be the Productivity Commission and then this last week there was the agreement between the States and the Commonwealth for “One stop shops” for environmental approvals.

The processes for approvals for CSG projects in the past have been far from desirable; current arrangements are not ideal and what for the future? There is certainly a lot of room for improvement and while onerous, conflicting, repetitive and time consuming regulation is not needed for all productive sectors of the economy there must be in place effective scrutiny.  

The last image was prepared by Rory Ross for his presentation. The yellow triangles depict current CSG wells. Look at the saturation to the south of the proposed new “400 well’ area to the Woleebee Creek field; this is the footprint of a 750 metre well spacing, the same according to the application will go in the new area to the north. Makes a mockery of a 1,400 ha footprint within the 123,500 ha area; even Roma farmer Peter Thompson who often speaks out about the positives about CSG made this very important observation in an October interview in the Weekend Australian when speaking about reaching a value on compensation for CSG activity on his land:

“At the end of that time it was finally agreed he would be compensated for the impact on his entire land, not just the area where the gas wells were. That saw him achieve the level of payment he originally sought.

"It was bringing it to an acceptance that the work impacts the whole property - the impact is not just around the gas wells, the impact is across the whole place," Mr Thompson said.”

To meet an ongoing need for export volume of LNG the CSG companies will progressively bring into production new fields. Going by current indications they will be tacked onto the initial project piece by piece, each below the 2,000 trigger. So watch out for the 1,999 footprint.

Previous related discussions

Top ten tactics and tricks

Gas Leak Response

 

UPDATE #1- Follow up discussion

Environmental approvals - How does the current system work?

 

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Alternative to The Precautionary Principle?

by Don Aitkin

 

First published at Online Opinion, cross post via  license under a Creative Commons License

 

 



I've written about the Precautionary Principle before. With that title it was adopted at the 1992 Rio conference on climate, and it has been used a great deal by proponents of the need to 'combat climate change' internationally. Built into it is Pascal's Wager about the correctness of believing in God, and it has analogies in the medical precept 'first do no harm'. I didn't like it when I first came across it, partly because it was dressed up as a 'principle' and partly because of the capital letters, which suggested importance and longevity.

Image sourced [here]


I've come across a most interesting paper by Max More, an English philosopher and futurist, which offers instead a 'proactionary principle'. There's a lot in it, and it's well worth reading. I'll discuss his alternative in a later post, but use this one to show his demolition of the precautionary principle. It is clear and accessible.

'The precautionary principle has at least six major weak spots. It serves us badly by:

assuming worst-case scenarios

distracting attention from established threats to health, especially natural risks

assuming that the effects of regulation and restriction are all positive or neutral, never negative

ignoring potential benefits of technology and inherently favouring nature over humanity

illegitimately shifting the burden of proof and unfavourably positioning the proponent of the activity

conflicting with more balanced, common-law approaches to risk and harm.

First, the precautionary principle always assumes worst-case scenarios. Any release of chemicals into the environment might initiate a chain of events leading to a disaster. Genetically modified organisms might cause unanticipated, serious, and irreversible problems. By imagining the proposed technology or project primarily in a worst-case scenario, while assuming that refraining from action will have no disastrous consequences, the adherents of the principle immediately tilt the playing field in their favour.

Second, the precautionary principle ignores background risk, distracting our attention from established dangers to health. Nature itself brings with it a risk of harms such as infection, hunger, famine, and environmental disruption. We should apply our limited resources first to major risks that we know are real, not merely hypothetical. The more we attend to merely hypothetical threats to health and environment, the less money, time, and effort will remain to deal with substantial health problems that are highly probable or thoroughly established. The principle errs in focusing on future technological harms that might occur, while ignoring natural risks that are actually occurring.

Third, adherents of the precautionary principle assume that proposed regulations and restrictions will cause no harm to health. Yet the very application of the principle itself can endanger our health. Consider, for instance, the consistent correlation between the health of a nation's citizens and their standard of living. Widespread application of the precautionary principle, by hampering economic activity, will tend to reduce living standards and thereby worsen health. In addition, major efforts to eliminate small, speculative risks can unleash far greater and more likely harms.

Fourth, the precautionary principle fails to treat natural and human threats on the same basis. Users of the principle routinely ignore the potential benefits of technology, in effect favouring nature over humanity. The principle does not account for the fact that the risks created by technological stagnation are at least as real as those of technological advancement. As biochemist Bruce Ames of UCLA has demonstrated, almost all of our exposure to dangerous chemicals comes in the form of natural chemicals. Yet fear and attention are primarily directed toward synthetic chemicals. A particular chemical has the same effects regardless of whether its source is natural or synthetic. Despite this, scientifically unsound activists treat human-derived chemicals as guilty until proven innocent, and naturally occurring chemicals as innocent or insignificant.


Fifth, the precautionary principle illegitimately shifts the burden of proof by positioning advocates of proposed activities or new technologies as reckless, in contrast with the 'responsible' advocates of 'precaution'. The content - even the very name - of the precautionary principle positions environmental activists and Luddites as friends and protectors of the common person. The innovators are made to prove safety, having already been portrayed as indifferent to the common good and interested only in profiting.

Image sourced [here]

Having illegitimately shifted the burden of proof, activists can impose their values without troubling themselves with evidence and without taking responsibility for the results of overly-precautious policies. For example, the Environmental Working Group opposed the use of pesticides, speculating about possible carcinogenic effects of trace amounts of their residues. They do not seem to have taken into account the probability that restricting pesticides would increase cancer rates.
Activists get away with the burden of proof trick by managing perceptions of risk instead of examining the real risks. This move is particularly dangerous because we have limited resources to address a multitude of risks. We cannot afford to make decisions driven by manipulated perceptions. It's crucial that we rely on a comprehensive, scientifically grounded perspective when choosing which risks have the strongest claim on our attention.

Sixth, and finally, the precautionary principle conflicts with the more balanced approach to risk and harm derived from common law. Common law holds us liable for injuries we cause, our liability being proportionate with the degree of foreseeable risk. By contrast, the precautionary principle dismisses liability and acts like a preliminary injunction, but without the involvement of a court, without the burden of proof, and without taking responsibility for harm caused by the injunction.'
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Betrayal of Trust - Part 4

Continuing on from     Betrayal of Trust – Part 1

                           Betrayal of Trust – Part 2

                           Betrayal of Trust – Part 3

Conclusion

There was a time when there existed a very positive relationship between Government agency staff and landowners. In my own area great strides of progress were made in an environmental problem of soil loss under traditional farming practices. QDNR staff brought new information, the building of contour banks and later on zero-till farming.

 

Photo, contour bank construction 1960 era

This was taken to the farmer and together, landholder and the Department cooperatively rectified a serious problem In 1999 the options were open to the Qld Government in what laws it used to implement this new philosophy of vegetation management. They chose a very authoritarian approach and both oppressive and punitive to the people it applies to. Trust is not going to happen within the current legal/ administrative structure.

A co-operative model has been replaced with a coercive one.

The power of the State is now available to determine what landowners can and can’t do in very significant ways in managing their own properties. The highly significant change in the role of agency staff and the employment of compliance officers has resulted in a change of culture and a change in attitude towards landowners. These changes have been directed from the political realm at the top and influenced by the extreme end of the environmental movement.

To drive results the approach is now all stick and no carrot. There appears to be an inability to recognise and to congratulate progressive practical, hands on conservation work by individual landowners or by community groups such as Landcare. The perversion of the original Landcare ethos that was rewarded by NHT 1 funding to Catchment Management Authority’s with the power of prosecution is very worrying indeed.

Summary

•  Prior to the 1990's a relationship of trust & respect developed between landowners & departmental field staff.  

•  There was a shared two way exchange of information & ideas to improvement in on farm productivity & environmental outcomes  

•  Soil conservation work is a good example of using contour banks & then zero till farming to combat soil erosion  

•  The then QDNR also promoting both good production together with environment
• http://live.greeningaustralia.org.au/nativevegetation/pages/pdf/Authors%20D/16_Dorricott.pdf 
•  Research had been conducted over extended periods of balancing farm production with environmental outcomes. Dr Bill Burrows had collected data since 1965, as have others scientists involved in this field including local Landcare groups.  

•  Qld Govt. chose to ignore some of the available science in the passing of the native vegetation laws & the like.  

•  Research appears to be now suppressed.  
• eg. burying in cabinet documents the report the Govt commissioned Dr Bill Burrow's to undertake

•  There has been a change in culture and a change of attitudes towards landowners. Inaccurate stereotypes have not been helpful; in some cases developed to the degree that justifies an approach of vindictive vilification towards landowners.

•  Changes of agency staff roles have been directed from the political realm at the top and influenced by the extreme end of the environmental movement.  

•  Qld Govt chose to ignore local expertise & dedicated effort when it ignored significant portions of the Regional Vegetation Management Plans.  

•  The attitude of a few in Govt & DNR head office towards the few landowners with poor environmental record imposed on all an approach of animosity & adversarial.  

•  Co-operation between landowners & departmental field staff was replaced with coercion  

•  All Department field staff have been affected, not just vegetation management officers  

•  All landowners have been affected: not just those with significant percentage of remnant vegetation.  

•  Loss of national productivity from the agricultural sector: hard to measure but logically must exist in a climate of distrust with little focus on farm productivity. 

•  Within landowners there has been a rise of negativity, reactionary attitudes; a hardened mindset 

•  The lack of recognition of landowners continual contact & life time observations of their land had profoundly impacted the Landcare movement.  

•  Community organizations like Landcare & Greening Australia have lost the original concept of community direction. As quoted previously from a paper by James Whelan, “no longer have the capacity to engage meaningfully in either decision making or on-ground environmental projects.”  

•  Direction now comes from Govt which is often not meeting community needs  

•  Funding is now through Regional Bodies that were supposed to channel monies to the community level  

•  Regional bodies have been allowed to operate beyond their guidelines and have absorbed much of the funding in establishing their own governance system.  

•  Local community Landcare groups and environmental organisations are being strangled out of existence.  

•  In some States, Regional Bodies have been called Catchment Management Authorities (CMA's) with the power to report & prosecute: Will this eventually happen in QLD as well?  

•  CMA's have perverted the Landcare ethos drastically to be yet another adversarial, coercive force against landowners  

•  There is no system to congratulate or reward good environmental endeavours by landowners  

•  There has been a chronic misunderstanding of the culture of rural Australian communities

Betrayal of Trust - Part 2

Continuing on from Betrayal of Trust – Part 1 

Vegetation Management Act

 
Instead of concentrating on education and using scientific research as a guidance as what to do; from around the year of 2001 the then Premier of QLD, Mr. Peter Beattie, suppressed the research and created the expectation in the near future of closing down any further land development; therefore strangling many farming families’ opportunity for future income. The result was panic clearing.
 

Image - print by William Strang, Farmer kneeling before justice.


The Beattie Government continued to fuel these expectations for two entire years until amendments made to the Vegetation Management Act came into effect in 2003, where the balance of all other remnant ecosystems was banned from clearing; all broad scale clearing stopped.

To this day I have a sense of sadness over this entire farce. The opportunity was lost. Landholders at the time would’ve been responsive to this research and moved forward in a positive way to the benefit of both farming and the environment. Currently, landholders have an even greater reason to mistrust Government with amendments to Act in 2003, additional amendments in 2005 and the moratorium on regrowth in April 2009 and the subsequent legislation on regrowth in October 2009.

To offer some evidence to the statement above that the QLD Premier and Government suppressed research, the following quote is from Michael Thompson, a senior Rural Press reporter who writes in the article, Lost battle of Queensland farming,

“Dr Burrows and a team of Primary Industries and Natural Resources scientists and economists were asked to prepare a paper for submission to the Productivity Commission. What that team found was distinctly unpalatable to the Queensland Government, which then decided to withdraw its participation in the PC inquiry, and took Dr Burrows’ research into Cabinet to prevent its public release.”

Regional Vegetation Management Plans

In the early stage when there was the possibility that tree clearing would, in the future, be regulated, a process of consultation was undertaken. Regional committees where assembled of various stakeholders to write management plans called, Regional Vegetation Management Plans (RVMP’s), of future regulation of vegetation management at the catchment and property level. Many people considerable time and resources making an honest effort completing this task using local knowledge and generational experience. The Regional Vegetation Management Plans were completed only to have the Government immediately completely disregard them or use small parts of them out of context with the original intent.

The disregard of the role the rural community played in development of the RVMP’s and also to the lack of recognition to landowner conservationists that retained considerable remnant vegetation only to be aggressively stood over by compliance officers after the introduction of the Vegetation Laws in 1999 and the Amendments that followed. “Compliance Officer” was a new role created in the QDNR after the Vegetation Management Act 1999 came into effect. It saw the change of agency staff working with farmers in an atmosphere of goodwill and mutual respect to that of policing, prosecution and distrust. Previous important conservation measures such as soil conservation work was abandoned and these personnel moved into vegetation management work

Impacts on Landowners

In January 2003, State councillor for Agforce Gus McGown wrote a newspaper article called, Long-term policy for resource management must engage landholders; in which he warned  

“Media stunts, though, does not make successful policy.

As an exercise in winning the hearts and minds of primary producers, it fails.

Whether it is encouraging voluntary conservation measures or water use efficiency, it is the carrot rather than the big stick approach that gets the thumbs up.

The cheapest way to get things done does not involve enforcement or heavy-handed administration.

If we are to achieve a sustainable future for rural Queensland, cooperation from landholders will be necessary.

Decisions based on access to Commonwealth funding and alienating primary producers might produce backslapping over coffee in the State Government's Executive Building.

However, it makes the development of a long-term policy for integrated natural resource management increasingly difficult.”  

Later in 2003, sadly all too common became stories such as this one in September 2003, Disappointment and anger at guilty plea. After reading this article there is no doubt as to some of the reasons for landowners feeling vilified, victimised and alienated from Government and agency staff.

“Last week the Surat grazier was forced to plead guilty to a case he could have won, with the Crown's case built around information he volunteered while allegedly being secretly tape-recorded.

But due to the "horrendous" financial cost of fighting the comparably unlimited legal resources of the Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Mr White was forced to succumb to the contentious charge.

Now Mr White, 60, is filled with disappointment and anger.

Even in cutting his losses, he still faces $15,000 in his own legal fees, plus $4800 in Crown legal costs as awarded by Magistrate Dennis Butel, who fined Mr White $600 but ordered that no conviction be recorded.

If Mr White had contested the charge he was facing legal fees of about $30,000 if he had won, or up to $50,000 if he had lost, a heartbreaking prospect on the back of a devastating drought.”

Continue to read

Betrayal of Trust - Part 3

Betrayal of Trust - Part 4

Betrayal of Trust - Part 1

Reform of land clearing laws in Queensland, NSW and WA is about to become a hot issue.  I’m breaking down a document into manageable blog size bites for you to digest and think about. This document was written in 2010 in response to a Senate inquiry into vegetation management laws. All four people involved in preparing this document were once and one still is deeply involved in either Landcare, Greening Australia or a Basin Association.

There is material in this document that will challenge the concept you may hold about land clearing. I encourage you to respond to this series of blogs with your thoughts and questions but please do so in a civil manner. I do have a lot of extra information and references that I can share on this subject.

The document is not designed to be primarily about the rights & wrongs of land clearing itself but how by abandonment of the cooperative approach against coercion does not work. It’s about a deplorable era in Qld state politics were the urban/ rural divide was used as wedge for political expediency. 

The views in this document are deeply felt by myself. There was so much that was possible thrown out of the window. 

Loss of trust, cooperation and changed mindsets from new laws

Compiled by: Mr Dale Stiller

Edited by Mr Steve Cupitt

In consultation with Mr Jock Douglas and Ms Roxane Blackely

Summary

This document aims to bring to your attention a regrettable change in the relationship, and especially trust, between Government agency staff and landowners. This has been to the detriment of maintaining balanced outcomes for farm productivity and environmental values caused by a quantum shift in Government policy, regulations and Acts. The landowners operating farming and grazing enterprises have been impacted by a worldview influenced by extreme environmentalism. This has effectively stopped cooperation with Government agency staff with landowners being forced to comply (with no consultation), with directives manufactured from afar and external to the realities of the landscape in which they have lifetime experience.

Background

 

Throughout the late 1990’s there was much field research into best practice land clearing that would fulfil the needs of farming families to generate a viable income and to maintain a balance and integration between conservation and production. The most notable and comprehensive was the research conducted by rangelands scientist Dr Bill Burrows. In the lecture, Seeing the wood(land) for the trees — An individual perspective of Queensland woodland studies (1965–2005), Dr Burrows speaks of starting his body of work in 1965. By the late 1990’s Dr Burrows had a wealth of data on the dynamics of the tree-grass relationship that enabled him to clearly demonstrate to landowners that in terms of dollar returns of production that it was best not to clear fence to fence, but to retain 20% of remnant timber in strips or shade-lines. The data from the extensive trial work conducted in the region of Dingo, Queensland, was quite compelling.  

There were others studying the relationships on tree density to grass production with particular reference to the scientific research conducted by Dr Chris Chilcott on properties in central QLD and the Darling Downs where the advantages of vegetation retention and management was demonstrated clearly. I can recall a booklet released during this period of time by the QDNR of case studies of best practice of tree clearing.  

Through my involvement with the local Landcare Group, we completed a study funded by the National Heritage Trust (NHT) on the valuation of variable widths of retained strips of timber left behind by a blade ploughing operation. This study involved a comprehensive collection of data of population densities of fauna & flora, grass growth and temperature variables.

In a grazing situation there are benefits of cooler temperatures in summer downwind of a tree corridor because of leaf transpiration & warmer temperatures in winter because of the windbreak effect and retention of warmer air held captive within the vegetation. The study showed at the correct widths between these corridors of retained trees, that there was a positive benefit for grass yield. Measured in kg/ha, there was close to zero kg/ha dry matter at the tree-line. This amount climbed in amount of kg/ha out to 60 meters from the tree-line. From 60 to 100 meters kg/ha dry matter remained stable & after 100m production fell away again. At the 100 m mark the benefit the timber was having on the grass had disappeared.  

This project of the Taroom Shire Landcare Group (TSLG) aimed to quantify the actual benefits; what was the level of production and what the benefits to the native fauna & flora were. Government agency staff and independent researchers partnered the project. The local rural community identified the need for research, completed the field component and assisted in all technical aspects. The methodology used to set up the research was done by expert partners, who also interpreted the data. To view further details of this project, download this report and refer to page 30.  

TSLG not only had extensive data from our own study but also had compiled research from many other sources. Our group was well down the path in planning the development and implementation of field days and workshops. It was our belief that farmers & graziers would have been receptive to this information as at that time, there was a good relationship and deep trust between agency staff and landowners. The clearing of trees is very expensive and with increased benefits proven to be available in retention of 20% of vegetation, this could equate in a decrease of 20% of the cost.  

The evidence quite clearly showed that it wasn’t tree clearing as such that was a problem but rather how it was conducted and level of planning developed prior to clearing. In the lecture delivered in 2002, page 12, (link provided in first paragraph of submission), Dr Bill Burrows says,

“Frankly, I consider that we would all benefit by concentrating in the future on educating, rather than further regulating rural landholders. Foremost amongst these lessons would be the need for more thought to be given by those clearing land to pre-clearing planning and post clearing management, rather than the clearing operation itself.”

The above quote from 2002 was after the Vegetation Management Act of 1999 came into effect which had placed a blanket ban on all mapped dominate and sub-dominate endangered regional ecosystems. Some regulation was in place; there was a lot of research being undertaken; urban public opinion was changing, in my belief due to campaigns by extreme environmentalists; political pressure was mounting and rural landowners were facing an uncertain future.

Land and Water Australia in its journal Thinking Bush reported ongoing research by Dr Chris Chilcott and others, expressed many of these tensions and dilemmas.

To continue pleased click on the following links

Betrayal of Trust - Part 2

Betrayal of Trust - Part 3

Betrayal of Trust - Part 4