Crowdfunding campaign to ‘safeguard’ Great Artesian Basin

By KATE BANVILLE

A battle to protect Australia’s largest underground water reservoir is recruiting support across the city country divide, with AgForce Queensland campaigning to settle the matter in the ‘court of public opinion’, to avoid taking the issue all the way to the Federal High Court.

Representing Queensland’s rural producers, the peak body has taken the extraordinary step of launching a legal fundraiser seeking financial and emotional buy-in from the public to “save the Great Artesian Basin”.

“It beggars belief that one of the natural wonders of the world – the mighty Great Artesian Basin – could be under threat in the way it currently is,” AgForce CEO Mike Guerin said.

“We are literally weeks away from a possible final approval.

“In the court of public opinion, we want to use these conversations to stop this project with the Federal Court as a last resort.”

What’s happening to the Great Artesian Basin?

CTSCo, a subsidiary of mining giant Glencore, has sought government approval to inject hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the southern part of the Surat Basin, roughly 400 kilometres west of Brisbane and encompassing the Western Downs, Maranoa, and Toowoomba Local Government Areas.

If approved, CTSCo would be allowed to start a three year test aimed at demonstrating the “viability of industrial-scale carbon capture and storage”.

Glencore, which is Australia’s largest coal producer, has publicly stated impacts on the Basin would be “minor and local“.

The project is part of Glencore’s decarbonisation strategy to achieve its “ambition of net zero total emissions by 2050”.

As public interest around the CTSCo project grows, Glencore has consistently insisted it was based on “robust scientific fieldwork, data and analysis, and has involved review from expert third-party institutions”.

Project information which is publicly available reinforces Glencore’s claim that it intended to inject ‘food grade carbon dioxide (CO₂)’ and was not proposing to inject ‘coal mine waste’ underground.

“CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) enjoys bipartisan support within the Australian government,” a Glencore statement said.

“The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) both regard CCS as essential if the world is to achieve its emission reduction targets.”

Mike Guerin said while AgForce supported evidence based technologies aimed at lowering emissions, it was vehemently opposed to a method which it claimed would cause “irreversible damage” to a natural, and relied upon resource.

“AgForce, industry, and communities we represent aren’t against the technology of carbon capture and storage,” he said.

“And indeed people that know much more about it than we do tell us it’s a great part of lowering emissions and looking after our planet.

“All Australians care about that but our issue is pumping CO₂ into the Great Artesian Basin as one of the natural wonders of the world, and a source of water for many communities.”

“Fundamental flaw in Federal Government’s laws”

The project now hinges on the Queensland Government to assess an environmental impact statement, after receiving earlier approvals by the former Morrison federal government.

The Great Artesian Basin of the largest underground freshwater resources in the world and Australia’s largest groundwater basin, stretching than 1.7 million square kilometres, underlying parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

However, the resource isn’t protected under Australia’s environmental laws and Agforce wants to know why.

To ensure that legal question is heard loud and clear, the organisation said it was prepared to let lawyers test it in the court room, with Guerin conceding any lobbying efforts to date had failed and that he now feared time was running out to stop the project from proceeding. 

“We’ve spent many months with the federal department and the federal minister (Tanya Plibersek), and the minister’s office responsible for this,” he said.

“Their official response to us has been that they stand behind the decision of the 9th of February, 2022.

“And that under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, there are no matters of national environmental significance, which would bring them to the view that the project should be put aside.”

This is a point of legal conjecture, according to AgForce, who would seek amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC ACT), arguing there are “fundamental flaws” in its “failure” to list the Great Artesian Basin as a “protected matter”.

“We have legal advice which tells us essentially, that the project as proposed by the proponent (CTSCo), should be captured under the EPBC,” he told the Caller.

“The legal advice was strong enough to give us confidence to re-engage with the government, and indeed to have legal action as a last resort. 

“We have a good story to tell about why the Great Artesian Basin should be protected and the EPBC Act provides the provisions for that protection.

“AgForce has asked the minister to revoke the decision, to reconsider it with the information that we’ve provided to them, and also, to change the EPBC Act so that we never get put in this ridiculous position again.