there have been reports in the paper recently that St Peters is going to be mined for gas
update 07/12/2010 *** : I attended the public meeting in Petersham last night - here are my notes ***
from what I've read online (newspaper articles) it seems that the St Peters gas drilling won't use fracking techniques - hydraulic fracturing (with the chemicals) but still, City of Sydney & Cr. Clover Moore allowed it to go through - correction 29/11/2010 Kristina Keneally's office approved the exploratory drilling via Clover Moore's tweet in reply to Sophie Loizou's question : @CloverMoore : @sofieloizou @cityofsydney has no role in approving or assessing exploration licenses. See my question in Parliament: http://bit.ly/httJL5
exploration starts early 2011 (according to this special report from Sun Herald).
if it isn't bad enough to be drilling in the city, the scary thing (I think) is that they *do* use fracking techniques when drilling in the country areas close to the dams in most states. this could have huge impact in contaminating our water supplies, which as we know are very precious (luckily we've had rain this year so many dams are full)
also I don't recall receiving any notices about this in leaflet drops - a city of sydney one arrived this week, I'll have another read to see if it's mentioned. if the greens hadn't asked for more info I'm not sure anyone would have known about this??
there's a film called Gasland showing at these cinemas which shows the practice of fracking in the USA. I'm going to see this on the weekend.
on the Greens website there's a couple of articles and a petition. I think people need to be made aware of what's happening. I know I'd like to know more of the details of what's involved & impacts etc.
Greens MP Cate Faehrmann has some info on the sydney (& nsw) gas drilling if you want to find out more http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cate-Faehrmann/125981310754146 - 'fracking' seems to be happening in other parts of Aus too - disturbingly close to our water supplies/dams. what's that song? "Australia, don't become America"
Saving our trees blog has a notice for a public town meeting to discuss this. there's also a facebook event page
Gas drilling in the Inner West – Public meeting
facebook event page
* Monday 6th December 2010
* 6pm
* Petersham Town Hall
* Speakers Cate Faerhmann MLC & Marrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne
some articles in the paper:
