Lock the Gate Alliance launches Federal Court challenge over missing water trigger in Tamboran Resources Shenandoah South approvals

Environmentalists have threatened to block the Territory’s largest approved fracking project over water trigger concerns.

On Monday, Lock the Gate Alliance announced it had launched a challenge against Tamboran Resources’ Shenandoah South Exploration and Appraisal project in the Beetaloo Basin. Picture: Justin Kennedy

The Territory’s largest approved fracking project has been threatened with a Federal Court injunction as environmentalists push to activate a national water trigger.

On Monday, Lock the Gate Alliance announced it had launched a challenge against Tamboran Resources’ Shenandoah South Exploration and Appraisal project in the Beetaloo Basin.

In May the then-NT Environment Minister Kate Worden gave the green light for up to 15 new wells across four exploration locations — expanding on an already existing site called Kyalla, about 320km south of Katherine.

NETWORK SPECIAL. MUST TALK WITH NETWORK PIC DESK BEFORE PUBLISHING. Tamboran Resources Shenandoah South Pilot Project site amid the vast Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory

Under the approved Environment Management Plan up to 375 mega litres of water would be extracted each year from the Gum Ridge Formation, an underground aquifer which is part of the large Cambrian Limestone Aquifer.

The project was approved by the Territory Government to extract a total of 450 mega litres a year.

This represents 5.6 per cent of the total extraction limits for the wider Georgina Wiso Water Plan, which has capped petroleum activity extraction at 8000 megalitres.

Tamboran has gained full Territory approvals, and has started work on the major fracking project.

Tamboran has not referred its project to the Federal Environment Minister under water trigger provisions, nor has the Federal Environment Minister ‘called in’ the project for assessment.

Lock the Gate Alliance’s legal representatives Environmental Justice Australia alleged fracking projects with an expected significant impact on water resources should be referred for federal assessment under the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Act.

“This government introduced changes to the water trigger last year so that tight and shale gas fracking projects would be assessed for their impact on water resources,” EJA specialist lawyer Retta Berryman said.

Jorgen Doyle and Adam Gaston at the anti-fracking demonstration in Darwin. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

A Tamboran spokesman said the company’s activities in the Beetaloo Basin had “undergone rigorous environmental assessment and are being done with full environmental approvals”.

“Tamboran continues to demonstrate a commitment to meeting important environmental obligations and continues to be confident in the process the company and the NT Government have followed.”

The approved EMP stated Tamboran had appropriately identified the environmental risks, and set our a clear “mitigation, management and monitoring” scheme to prevent “irreversible environmental damage”

Mining and Energy Minister Gerard Maley recently visited the Beetaloo to inspect current operations by Tamboran Resources at its Shenandoah South site on Exploration Permit 98.

The Territory EMP approval said there was a “low” risk for a chemical spill to impact downstream to the Newcastle Creek catchment and Lake Woods, saying only in the “unlikely event of a catastrophic release … an area of up to 549m radius could be affected”.

The EMP estimates it would take 2000 days – more than five years – for a spill to infiltrate through 50m below ground level in siltstone, or 200 days in fractured limestone.

A Federal Court sitting date has not yet been confirmed.

The Environment Centre NT only last week failed in its bid to stop the same project.

The NT Civil and Administrative Tribunal rejected a stay application lodged by the ECNT to overturn Ms Worden’s decision to approve Tamboran’s Environmental Management Plan.

ECNT sought an order for the original decision to be set aside because it was not satisfied the information provided in the EMP complied with existing regulations around risks of wastewater spills and underground aquifers.

But NTCAT president Mark O’Reilly rejected the bid for a stay, saying he was satisfied it would result in prejudice to Tamboran.