Narrabri struggling with delays to Santos CSG project
The NSW town of Narrabri may struggle to accommodate workers building Santos’s $3.5bn coal-seam gas project.
The NSW town of Narrabri may struggle to accommodate workers building Santos’s $3.5bn coal-seam gas project and a local section of the commonwealth’s $10bn Inland Rail line should the energy development be further delayed, the Narrabri Shire Council has warned.
The NSW Independent Planning Commission — responsible for deciding the fate of the controversial development — met with the council in Narrabri on July 7, discussing a range of issues concerning the project which aims to supply half the state’s gas needs.
The 300km Narromine to Narrabri section of the rail route may pose a problem should the Santos facility be further delayed, the council told commissioners.
If “the Santos project gets stalled again, we will be having major concerns”, Narrabri shire deputy mayor Cameron Staines told the IPC. “We’ll be having two big significant projects happening at the same time.”
The Inland Rail route runs through the region’s Pilliga Forest and bypasses Santos’s Leewood water treatment plant, according to the council, which voted in favour of the major gas project at a November meeting.
IPC panel chair Steve O’Connor and commissioners John Hann and Professor Snow Barlow took a two-day tour of the Narrabri project last week, including a full-day site inspection in the Pilliga Forest with Santos staff and a small number of “independent community observers” selected by the IPC to join the visit because of their submissions on the gas development.
The Narrabri council was also asked for its opinion over whether it preferred Santos to opt for APA to build a pipeline to deliver gas to market or an alternative $1.2bn Hunter pipeline.
“I think we’ll take that one on notice, please, commissioner, because we would like — we’ve got some fairly strong views on that, and we’d like to make sure we put that on the record,” Narrabri shire executive manager of planning and environment Daniel Boyce told the IPC.
The fairness of expecting local landowners to track any decline in water availability from another resources project in the region was also raised by the council, arguing it would be difficult for a family-owned farm to navigate the process.
Placing “the burden on the proponent to prove that it is not responsible for any drawdown of privately owned bores, it seemed to us that the proponent, through engaging experts, etc, is likely to probably advocate for the fact that it is not responsible and there’s a disproportionate amount of resources available, then, for a farmer or the owner of a private bore to — to argue against that,” Mr Boyce told the IPC. “I’m not aware of any formal process, and I guess that’s why we’ve expressed some concerns, because it seems to us that it would be difficult for a ... family-owned farm to potentially navigate that process.”
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