No Fracking Way

Soil and water are undeniably this dry and barren continents most precious natural resources. Long after the  ore has been mined from the ground and the last of the coal burnt, soil and water will still be feeding our country and keeping us alive. A coal mine may make a billion dollars in one year, but the value of productive farmland is priceless and given it is treated right, has the capacity to continue producing indefinitely. Right now the biggest threat to the integrity of our soil and water comes from coal seam gassification, which uses a process called hydraulic fracturing, pumping chemicals deep underground, to break through rock and extract gas from coal seams. The industry would tout it as a 'greener' way to mine, avoiding large scars on the landscape and burning gas which is somehow worked its way into being called a 'clean energy.' However coal seam gas moves the problems underground, deep into our aquifers. If the chemicals escape into these aquifers there is no way of remediating the damage, threatening human health, the health of ecosystems and our farmlands. Whereas an open cut mine may be limited to a few hectares in size, coal seam gassification sprawls across the landscape, scaring the land with sunken wells. Right now in Northern NSW there is an application to turn 85,000 hectares of the Pilliga Forest into a gas field of sunken wells, sediment basins, pipelines and roads. Else where in the country wells are being sunk into prime agricultural land, threatening not only our food production, but the communities that live there. In the USA coal seem gas has expanded across the states of Pennsylvania and New York, destroying some of North America's most productive farmland in some of its most densely populated states. It is a road that Australia does not need to go down with its enormous potential for renewable energy generation. It is not a clean energy, producing large amounts of methane in its extraction and generating CO2 when burnt. The challenges of climate change and a growing population mean that in the future, soil and water will become ever more precious to us. If we canot drink gas and we can not eat coal, then they should always be put second to soil and water.