Yahoo Finance Narrabri gas project should not have been approved while Santos plans remain uncertain, opponents say
Opponents of Santos’s $3.6bn Narrabri gas project say it should not have been approved given the company has not explained which parts of the Pilliga forest will be cleared or finished investigating what it would mean for local groundwater.
The federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, announced on Tuesday the government had approved the controversial development, which would involve up to 850 gas wells being drilled in grazing land and forest in northern New South Wales.
Ley said she was satisfied the biodiversity of the Pilliga forest would be safeguarded by conditions set by federal and state authorities.
Her approval was the final major regulatory hurdle for the project, but Santos has said it will take between 12 and 18 months before it is ready to make a final decision to invest in the development.
Related: Federal government gives environmental approval to controversial $3.6bn Narrabri gas project
The anti-mining group Lock the Gate and community members opposed to the project said the gas field had been approved despite continuing uncertainty about the effect it would have on the environment.
Concerns were also been raised about how the project would affect several threatened species and impact koala habitat.
Carmel Flint, a senior campaigner, said the government had “dropped the ball” in dealing with the impact on groundwater and biodiversity, and called the federal environmental conditions – which largely reflect those set by NSW – “weak”.
Flint said Santos was yet to set out exactly where in the Pilliga forest it would drill its wells, meaning the precise effects on the temperate woodland and threatened species were unclear.
Santos was required to produce a biodiversity management plan to address this. Flint noted the conditions set out by Ley did not require the federal government to approve that plan, meaning it would be left to state authorities.
“They don’t even ask for the biodiversity plan, which is just extraordinary,” she said. “The Pilliga forest is the largest temperate woodland left in eastern Australia. This project will basically carve that up into roads and pipelines and gas wells and lead to invasive weeds and feral animals increasing.”
Flint and landowners in the area said they were also concerned the federal government had not set a condition that would require Santos to seek commonwealth approval for a water management plan setting out how it would manage the effects on water resources.
Margaret Fleck, a Liverpool Plains beef farmer, told Guardian Australia the environmental approval did not assure people who relied on the groundwater that their needs would be protected.
“It is incredibly poor that, despite the demonstrated inadequacies of Santos’s water assessment and the risks to water resources of the project, the minister is not even going to interrogate the water management plan or refer it to the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on water,” she said.
The NSW Independent Planning Commission’s approval of the project was conditional on Santos updating its groundwater modelling so there was greater confidence in the impact it would have. Lock the Gate raised concerns about Santos’s models before the project was approved and tried to submit fresh evidence to the commission, but it was not considered.
Brendan Dobbie, of the Environmental Defenders Office, said the community had expressed strong concerns about the project’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, groundwater drawdown in a significant agricultural region, and clearing of intact forest with high environmental value.
“Given the concerns that remained in relation to the NSW approval, and the fact this approval is really just an echo of the state conditions, I would suspect these concerns would still be felt very strongly in the community,” he said.
The environmental consultant David Paull, of Coonabarabran, next to Pilliga national park, said Ley had “more or less accepted carte blanche what the NSW government has already decided on biodiversity, without question”.
The federal government’s conditions allow Santos to clear a total of 989 hectares, which is the maximum Santos had requested. Species at risk include the south-eastern long-eared bat and the Pilliga mouse, which is endemic to the region.
Paull said evidence he gave to the NSW Independent Planning Commission showed a risk of “serious and irreversible harm” to threatened species, including the vulnerable Pilliga mouse, koalas, the endangered five-clawed worm-skink, the endangered black-striped wallaby and the vulnerable Eastern pygmy-possum.
Related: Narrabri gas project: do we need it and what's at stake for Australia's environment?
Paull said: “One of my main issues is that [Santos] did not know where [the wells] were going. [The approval authorities] have dealt with that by giving them upper clearance limits in different vegetation communities, based on the company’s own estimates. That provides a serious amount of uncertainty.”
He said even with those upper disturbance limits in place “we still lose 100 hectares of koala habitat and 300 hectares of potential breeding habitat for the Pilliga mouse”.
A Santos spokesman said: “The approval conditions include a process for selecting well locations in a way that protects the environment. Well-siting in accordance with the approval conditions will be part of the appraisal and development process we are now commencing.”
He said work would start early in the new year on the first phase of the project – a 12 to 18-month appraisal drilling program – including expansion of a water monitoring network.
A Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment statement provided to Guardian Australia said Ley’s approval included extra conditions beyond those imposed by the NSW government.
Those included ongoing monitoring of bores and modelling to identify potential impacts on groundwater aquifers “before they occur”; binding stop-work provisions related to groundwater; and a framework to assess the risk of chemicals used.
The statement added: “The minister’s conditions are focused on the environmental outcomes that Santos must achieve, which will be supported by robust, transparent and ongoing reporting by Santos which will be monitored by the commonwealth. The provision of robust biodiversity and water management plans are a condition of both commonwealth and state approvals.
“These will be developed in consultation with an expert biodiversity advisory group and water technical advisory group and relevant NSW agencies and require approval from the NSW planning secretary.
“The minister’s approval includes evidence and outcomes-based conditions, with the commonwealth having an important monitoring and compliance role, ensuring the protection of water resources and biodiversity.”
