On Wednesday, September 19, I attended an education evening about the dangers of coal seam gas mining on our environment. The meeting took place at the Civic Centre in Murwillumbah. The event had been well advertised over the Internet and by word of mouth. A film was shown to show the dangerous effects of CSG mining in Australia, yet only a handful of stalwarts attended. Where were all the people of this Shire? Perhaps they are so aware of the imminent danger this terrible technology poses to rural Australia that they did not need to come. Perhaps they were too busy lobbying their political representatives. We can only hope this was the case.
I for one watched this film in horror. The once beautiful Hunter Valley in New South Wales looks like an industrial wasteland, never to recover to its former usefulness in food production. Huge amounts of our precious water supply is being wasted in the driest nation in the world, Australia, and we are allowing it to happen. The water is being poisoned and huge gas flares are spewing toxic chemicals into out skies. And now Casino is under threat. Already 80 per cent of Queensland and 90 per cent of Darling Downs (which looks like a war zone) has been sacrificed, by unscrupulous businesses and corrupt politicians, to CSG mining.
Make no mistake, we are being faced with the worst ecological disaster this country has ever faced – one it cannot recover from. Our drinking water is threatened; our food exports are threatened; our very lives are threatened. Are we just going to sit by while foreign and domestic gas companies rape our land and poison the water-table? This is a war and no mistake. If a foreign power invaded us and threatened to destroy us, would we just sit by and do nothing? This is no different!
As I drove home last night I noticed the pubs were full, yet the Civic centre was empty. Come on people, WAKE-UP. Casino is already being trashed. A pipeline is planned to run through the Border ranges, to Ipswich in Queensland. The enemy is at our borders and WE are next. We can fight this if we stand shoulder-to-shoulder and say an emphatic ‘NO’ to this insidious and lethal CSG mining.
Chris Degenhardt
Tweed Shire Resident
