The gas industry, dividing rural communities? THE idea that all gas opponents are hardened leftish eco-activists has been contradicted by a group of 32 Bentley farmers, signatories to a letter opposing any gas exploration in their area. But you wont see them manning blockades in full view of television cameras - thats not their style. Beef cattle farmer Tony Davis and retired dairy farmer Robert Lowrey said the idea of a local gas industry originally seemed like a good idea. Mr Davis originally had a test well on his familys 180ha property and had no problems with Metgascos management of the well or the rehabilitation of the land. He only became concerned after realising the potential scale of industry involved. When they started talking about pipelines and gasfields, that was the trigger point when I decided I better do some more reading about it, he recalled. For this gas thing to be viable, theres got to be roads and wells and a lot of infrastructure. They were not impressed by the idea of hydraulic fracturing - the stimulation method used to get gas to flow, and the copious amounts of water drawn out of the well and stored in dams. If its commercially viable, then what? We really have no idea where it will end, Mr Lowrey said. All farmers who signed the letter own at least 60ha of land, and many are descendants of original settlers, living on land only ever owned by the one family. What motivated the two of them to help formulate the letter was the stereotypical image of protesters being bandied around in Sydney and the national media. Our household became very annoyed when we were told we were anarchists trying to destroy the states economy - my family has been contributing to the NSW rural economy for 150 years, Mr Lowrey said. Were still doing what we came here to do, and doing it successfully. I think what most of us are really concerned about is that we might end up with great divisions in our community.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Apr 2014 01:18:08 +0000
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