COLAC Otway Shire has moved to protect its position as a pristine food bowl, and has joined the push for a moratorium on coal seam gas exploration (CSG) and development.
The Western District Shire Council voted unanimously at its council meeting last week to call on the State Government to further research CSG and its impacts on the environment and economy before it grants access to mining companies in their region.
Colac Otway joins the Bass Coast Shire, which last month moved a similar motion, and has hosted public meetings amid growing concern that CSG and coal exploration will have untold impacts on the agricultural, environment and lifestyle factors in the region.
Colac Otway Shire Councillor Stuart Hart said he was extremely concerned at the experience of landholders in Queensland and New South Wales where the battle between mining and farming was having significant impacts on current viability and future prosperity. “This industry (CSG) is a significant threat to the Shire.
“I consider this to be a pristine food bowl...we do not want mining companies pouring carcinogenic chemicals into our waterways.”
Cr Hart said agriculture and tourism were the two main industries in the region, which stretches from Birregurra and Colac to the Great Ocean Road, and includes Apollo Bay.
The Colac Shire’s move has been praised by Friends of the Earth, which says regional communities need to be congratulated for the fight against mine development.
“While the state government continues to peddle the line that current laws are sufficient to protect landowners when it comes to coal and CSG, clearly regional communities are not buying it” said Friends of the Earth campaigns co-ordinator Cam Walker.
“This intervention by Colac Otway has special significance given that the state government Inquiry into Greenfields Mineral Exploration and Project Development in Victoria is due to report next week,” said Mr Walker.
“The minerals industry has been lobbying for a ‘streamlined’ approvals process for minerals such as coal and CSG. The Minerals Council believes there is ‘enormous potential for a coal seam methane industry in Victoria.’ Clearly rural communities do not share their vision of an expanded fossil fuel industry being rolled out across southern Victoria”.
Meanwhile the growing anxiety in Bass Coast Shire, where Leichardt Resources wants to extend its leaseholds for the development of coal, and CSG exploration has activated community protests.
Leichhardt Resources Pty Ltd lodged a second application for an exploration licence in Bass Coast with the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) at the start of April, in the search for CSG and brown or black coal.
The area pinpointed within the licence runs from South of Wonthaggi through to Pound Creek and into South Gippsland.
Community meetings were held throughout the Shire late last month, and a spokesman for the community action group, Neil Rankine said there was growing passion to mount a defence for the region against Queensland based Leichhardt’s application.
“We are quite concerned that the Victorian State Government doesn't seem interested in engaging at all, even with its own constituency, on this issue,” said Mr Rankine.
“Sure there is money in this for governments and that can help them balance budgets, but we are interested in longer term values and assets in our regions. This mad rush to dig up and burn the last fossil fuels that will ever get anything like a social license has the potential to seriously degrade farming land and water resources for centuries.
“The whole system of ministerial discretion and a minerals resources act that looks at little else than facilitating mining needs to be addressed.”
