Liza Balmain cuts the ribbon to officially open the Save Our Darling Downs office in Dalby.

FARMERS fighting the expansion of the coal-seam gas industry have opened a volunteer-run community outreach centre in the main street of Dalby, three doors down from the office of Arrow Energy, a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina.

As part of the long-running Save Our Darling Downs group, they are opposed to Arrow Energy’s plans to expand its Surat Gas Project on to priority agricultural land.

Arrow is considering its final investment decision for the next stage of the project, which would involve the drilling of hundreds of new coal seam gas wells in the Cecil Plains and Nangwee districts, taking it east of the Condamine River for the first time.

“This community outreach centre will be a resource hub where people can access support for dealing with the threat of coal-seam gas,” Nangwee farmer Liza Balmain said.

“It will also provide information about the importance of the agricultural sector in this area.

“The Darling Downs really is a world-renowned food bowl and it is a travesty that the Queensland Government is sacrificing it and the water that sustains it to polluting coal-seam gas multinationals.

“We grow cotton, sorghum, chickpeas, wheat, and other grains and legumes that feed and clothe Queensland and the world, all underpinned by the precious Condamine Alluvium, which is right now threatened by the gas industry’s voracious appetite for groundwater.

“Coal seam gas-induced subsidence, caused by the extraction of vast quantities of gas and water from beneath the earth, is also causing fertile cropping country on the Darling Downs to sink.

“Coal seam gas and farming are totally incompatible in this part of the world.

“We must protect the future integrity of this rich agricultural region and its invaluable groundwater from destructive coal seam gas.”

“What’s happening on the Darling Downs is a real nightmare for a lot of people, and we’re desperately trying to stop this industry before it expands any further on to the Condamine floodplains,” Save Our Darling Downs spokesperson and Cecil Plains farmer Melinda Commens said.

“We have seen the impacts further north and west and know that the coal seam gas industry is totally incompatible with growing food and fibre for clothing production.

“The Condamine Alluvium, which sustains this food bowl and our regional towns, is a priceless water resource that is too precious to risk.”

In March this year, dozens of farming families across the Darling Downs united to declare their properties, which now cover more than 30,000ha in total, gasfield free.

Arrow Energy petroleum titles cover all these properties.

SODD said gasfield free declarations have been used throughout Australia to thwart gas companies that were attempting to invade communities.

Source: Save Our Darling Downs