Gas Watch 76
Date: 22-Dec-09
Author: Hunter Valley Protection Alliance
AGL Energy - necessary corrections to recent media releases in Cockfighter news.
1. In the letters to the Editor of the Cockfighter, AGL Energy mistakenly claimed that its Petroleum Exploration Licences (PEL) enable it to continue exploration for Coal Seam Methane Gas "over the next 6 years of the Licence terms."
Correction 1: PEL 4 expired on 10th November, 2009. At this stage, although application has been made to renew it, as at 3rd December, it had not been renewed. It may, or may not, be renewed for 6 years; it may or may not be for the previously approved Licence area.
Correction 2: PEL 267 expires on 19th January, 2012, 2 years away, not 6 years away.
2. In the same letter to the Editor, AGL Energy incorrectly says "We have an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for the project....".
Correction: The author of that letter personally announced to the Community Consultative Committee as recently as 30th November, 2009, and by subsequent letter, that the EMP has not been prepared, that "we are still doing the work."
3. In the advertisement in the Cockfighter by AGL Energy entitled "Shallow water for AGL" it is incorrectly written that "no change in water quality in the shallow water resources" was found.
Correction: The salinity of the water in the test well reduced. This can be an indication that fresh water from the shallow aquifers is leaking into the coal seam from which AGL was pumping water. Professor Willgoose, the independent expert, said this was "puzzling" and that more data was needed.
The Cockfighter also reports that John and Brenda Darr are moving from Broke to Milbrodale after 33 years in Broke. We wish them well in their move and their new home. As AGL Energy's only employee in Broke, we wonder if he knows something we don't about future living in Broke!
OPEN QUESTION TO AGL ENERGY: Will your Company give an irrevocable, legally binding guarantee that neither a gas processing plant nor any other industrial plant will be built on the land owned by you adjacent to the village of Broke or at Spring Mountain or at Bulga?
PO Box 120 Broke NSW 2330
www.huntervalleyprotectionalliance.com
