Thursday, July 23, 2020

AUSTRALIA FRACKS

CSIRO fracking research 'doesn't pass the pub test', expert says
By George Roberts Posted Tuesday 14 July 2020
A coal seam gas well on a property near Dalby in October 2019.(ABC Southern Queensland: Nathan Morris)

The CSIRO has been accused of having a conflict of interest with the coal seam gas (CSG) industry after releasing a report that it says found fracking has little to no impact on the environment.

Key points:

Six fracked gas wells were tested, chosen by industry, out of the 19,000 wells in Queensland

There are concerns the CSIRO is compromised by its relationship with the CSG industry

GISERA says it is the most chemically detailed study ever undertaken into CSG in Australia

Research by an alliance between the Commonwealth research agency and major CSG companies has been used to argue that fracking is a safe method of extracting gas.

The CSIRO said the report — Air, Water and Soil Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Surat Basin, Queensland — found "little to no impacts" from fracking "on air quality, soils, groundwater and waterways", but the organisation was subsequently criticised for testing just six gas wells out of the 19,000 across the state.

The research was conducted by the Gas Industry Social and Economic Research Alliance (GISERA), which is a joint research venture that includes the CSIRO and major gas companies.

An environmental scientist from Queensland's Griffith University, Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, said that sample size "doesn't pass the pub test".

"Six [wells] is just too small a sample out of 19,000 wells to have any confidence in the results," Professor Lowe said.
Professor Ian Lowe stands with his hands clasped in front of his body.
"The second and more basic problem is that the wells weren't chosen randomly: they were chosen by the industry and the industry obviously has a vested interest in looking good."
Professor Lowe says the GISERA report on fracking has fundamental problems.(ABC News: Tara Cassidy)

Former Australian chief scientist Professor Penny Sackett agreed.

Professor Sackett, who now works for the ANU's Climate Change Institute, questioned the choice of sites.

"There's simply not enough sites that are tested and also I think there could be a concern that the sites were chosen by the gas industry itself," she said.

Gas industry picked the sites

A spokesperson for GISERA said the research included a large amount of sampling and analysis, making it the most chemically detailed study ever undertaken in a CSG field in Australia.

More than 100 water samples were taken from creeks and groundwater, and dozens of tests were carried out on soil samples, the spokesperson said.

GISERA's website also states its alliance agreement with CSG companies "provides a robust and transparent governance framework to ensure that GISERA's research is demonstrably independent".

But Professor Sackett said there were concerns the CSIRO was compromised by its relationship with the CSG industry.

"The report was essentially conducted on behalf of the gas industry, funded primarily by the gas industry, with sites chosen by the gas industry," Professor Sackett said.

"You really want those sorts of reports done by independent bodies that are funded independently, preferably by public money."

She also pointed out the research had found significant contamination to soil.

"When you read all the way down into the report and its statements, they were much stronger in saying that hydraulic fracking fluid had a significant adverse effect on subsurface soil microbes, and that much more study was needed," Professor Sackett said.

 A satellite photo from Google Earth of hundreds of CSG wells near Chinchilla in September 2019.

A satellite photo of hundreds of CSG wells near Chinchilla in September 2019.(Source: Google Earth)

The Australia Institute think-tank analysed the results of the research and said there was a huge margin of error with only six wells tested.

Australia Institute spokesman Mark Ogge said it was "not representative of CSG in Queensland".

"Overall — in fact — it's got a margin of error of around 40 per cent," Mr Ogge said.

"What you've got is a situation where the gas industry is funding and overseeing research into its own impacts and then that research is being used to influence decision makers at all levels of government."

"You've got fracking companies funding research and overseeing research on the impacts of fracking, so there's a huge conflict of interest at the heart of this research.

"There's 19,000 CSG wells in Queensland and this report only … looked at six wells, which is a tiny sample size."

Commercial CSG production began in Queensland in 1996.(ABC News)

 A coal seam gas well

'Six wells is a joke'

Professor Lowe, Professor Sackett and Mr Ogge all said they had no dispute with the work of the CSIRO scientists involved in the research, but questioned how it had been interpreted.

Professor Lowe drew a parallel with the tobacco industry.

"Imagine asking the tobacco industry to choose from 19,000 smokers [with] six to be tested for their health," he said.

"I'm sure they could find six healthy people, and they would then assert that smoking was not a health risk for the report to be credible."

 Farmer Russel Bennie stands in a crop field with a hat on.

Queensland farmer Russel Bennie, from Cecil Plains near Toowoomba on Queensland's Darling Downs, said "it's very obvious that six wells is a joke to any stretch of imagination".

"When you start to selectively sample populations, you can prove anything," Mr Bennie said.
'Very real risk'

After Mr Bennie bought his property 10 years ago, he discovered there was a plugged and abandoned exploration well that had not been rehabilitated.

"About nine years ago, we had a visit from the gas companies," he said.

"They were operating on neighbouring properties and they told us that that water bore that had been in existence [on my property] for 100 years … was going to start spewing gas as a result of their operations next door.

"There is a risk — the very real risk is obviously methane escaping in large quantities."
Mr Bennie bought his property 10 years ago.(ABC News: George Roberts)

Mr Bennie chose not to enter into an agreement to have the bores fixed because he would be locked into a confidentiality agreement and not be allowed to speak publicly about the problems with CSG.

"Someone has to be the canary in the coal mine here," he said.

"At the moment, there's no independent people spread throughout the gas field who in any way have an independent voice.

"I think it's worthwhile being that independent voice."

Program 'independently assessed'

A CSIRO spokesman said the major output of the first phase of the GISERA study was "independently peer reviewed by international and Australian experts and their feedback was incorporated into the final Phase 2 study designs prior to work commencing".

"The research program is overseen by independent Regional Research Advisory Committees in which community stakeholder representatives and independent experts always have majority voting rights," the spokesman said.

Fracking involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals down gas wells under pressure to release trapped gas.

Coal seam gas is natural gas formed within coal seams, usually 400 to 1,000 metres underground.

To extract CSG, wells are drilled into coal seams and water is pumped out to allow the trapped gas to flow.

Commercial CSG production began in Queensland in 1996.

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