Sunpork raises alarm over Glencore carbon capture project

Australia’s pork supply may be in jeopardy if a plan to pump liquid carbon dioxide into Queensland’s greatest underground water network is allowed.

Australia’s pork supply is in jeopardy if a controversial plan to pump liquid carbon dioxide into Queensland’s greatest underground water network is allowed to go ahead, a major producer has warned.

Queensland-based SunPork, Australia’s largest pork producer, warned if Glencore’s project in the Great Artesian Project compromised the water supply the consequences would include stripping supermarket shelves of 10 per cent of pork.

Glencore and its subsidiary CTSCo has maintained the carbon capture storage project in the Great Artesian Basin is safe and the impacts on aquifer — northwest of Goondiwindi — would be minor and localised.

But the agriculture industry — led by peak bodies including AgForce and the National Farmers’ Federation — are vehemently opposed to the project’s location as the basin is the water source for 22 per cent of the country.

Hancock Agriculture, owned by Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, is also opposed.

The state government is due to hand down its decision on the project in two weeks, though Premier Steven Miles indicated that based on his knowledge of environmental laws, the green light was unlikely.

The issue has also sparked a rift in the federal Coalition, with Nationals leader David Littleproud going so far as to admonish Deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley for waving the project through in 2022 — though the decision at the time was made by a bureaucrat based on existing guidelines.

SunPork chief executive Dr Robert van Barneveld, in a submission to a Senate inquiry into the project, said more than 800 people stood to lose their jobs if the water in the basin was compromised.

“We risk the welfare of 250,000 pigs at any point in time, we potentially render useless more than $200m in production infrastructure,” he said.

“And the $170m Swickers abattoir would not have sufficient volume to operate leaving more than 800 individuals unemployed and a 10 per cent shortfall in national pork supply through all major retailers.

“With this much at stake from just one organisation, it beggars’ belief that any Government would contemplate risking damage to such an irreplaceable water resource so a major emitter of carbon dioxide can reduce their costs of mitigating these emissions.”

CTSCo general manager Darren Greer, in a radio interview last week, said the company had research and developed the project over a decade.

He was adamant the aquifer chosen held water not fit for human consumption or irrigation and the liquid carbon dioxide was to be stored 2.5km underground.

“We aren’t targeting an aquifer here that’s connected to the freshwater aquifers and we don’t see the risk to the agricultural community and that vast network of underground water supply that the country relies on,” Mr Greer said.

Councils across regional Queensland, including Toowoomba, Goondiwindi, Balonne, Longreach and Carpenteria all oppose the project.