Friday, August 17

What lies beneath: CSG's hidden risks



Dr Stuart Khan, an environmental engineer and water quality expert from the University of NSW

RISK assessments for the coal seam gas (CSG) industry only tell half the story and fail to consider catastrophic events such as floods, an independent expert has warned.

Dr Stuart Khan, an environmental engineer and water quality expert from the University of NSW, has issued perhaps the starkest and most plaintive warnings to date about inherent risks of CSG exploration and extraction.
 
But he fears nobody’s listening.
 
“We are not giving adequate thought to what could go wrong – unforeseen things such as an earthquake, vandalism, which is possible in a controversial industry, human error, equipment malfunction. The water industry has learned in the last decade these things are drivers of hazardous events,” he said.
 
And while there has been much hue and cry about the potential adverse effects of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking), with both the chemicals and fracking currently banned in NSW, Dr Khan pointed out that deep under the earth these naturally occurring toxic substances were plentiful.
 
CSG activities could mobilise benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) along with chromium, strontium, lead, iron, zinc, arsenic, fluoride and selenium, and promote bacterial growth.
 
Naturally occurring substances in coal seams include traced elements such as mercury, arsenic and lead, and, in some locations, radioisotopes such as radium, thorium and uranium, he said.


The Land

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