Letter to Editor re Rhys Turner:

The Australian Petroleum Production and Production Assoc.’s Rhys Turner’s attack on those diabolical green activists {QCL Aug 24} is long on industry rhetoric but very short on a truthful analysis of the unsustainable legacy that the “unconventional “ and coal seam gas industries are leaving on the aquifers of the Great Artesian Basin {GAB}.

Mr. Turner has spent most his career as a political advisor. He spent his last three years with Tatts Queensland helping provide punters with “moments that thrill ”.  He joined APPEA as Queensland Director in Feb 2017, obviously with impeccable credentials for a highly paid PR job.

However the Basin Sustainability Alliance is very concerned that Mr. Turner appears particularly ill informed on the unsustainable and arguably irreversible impact on GAB aquifers that the CSG industry is having.

The Qld. Government’s own Underground Water Impact Report 2016 solely for the Surat Cumulative Management Area, estimates that the CSG industry will pump out 5-6 Sydney Harbour volumes over the next 50 years from the Walloon coal measures and other inter-connected aquifers of the GAB.

No amount of compensation or “make good” arrangements will reverse this irreversible damage to our priceless underground “ water bank”  that underpins agriculture west of the Great Dividing Range. Mr Turner needs to understand that the unlimited taking of 50,000 plus megalitres annually from underneath the majority of landholders and providing a minority with “ beneficial use “ water is inequitable and depletes the “water bank” for future generations.

BSA members don’t have “ moments that thrill” when contemplating the hydrological and other negative impacts of the CSG industry. We have a highly credentialed speaker list at our AGM in Chinchilla on Oct 13. and cordially invite Mr. Turner to attend to hear the latest science on some “inconvenient truths”.

Lee McNicholl BSA Chair

Arklow, Dulacca , Qld