Dear Chair of the EPA,
Submission to the EPA: Kimberley fracking project (‘Valhalla’), Bennett Resources Ltd
The Kimberley has the largest, most intact tropical savannah in the world and is home to a multitude of threatened species. It is a national and international tourism icon for its intact landscapes and vibrant living First Nations cultures.
The imposition of fracking and turning the Kimberley into oil and gas fields akin to the industrialised, polluted landscapes of Texas is completely unacceptable.
I request the EPA reject Bennett Resources Ltd’s ‘Valhalla’ fracking project. There are unacceptable impacts and risks to important environmental values that are not manageable.
The significant impacts, or risks include -
- This is the largest ever proposal for fracking in the Kimberley (20 frack wells);
- This is just the first stage in much bigger plans by the fossil fuel industry to open up the Kimberley (Canning basin) to large scale oil and gas production – the company has announced plans for a 1000km gas pipeline to LNG facilities in the Pilbara which would in turn necessitate thousands of wells;
- The Kimberley landscape could be turned into US-style oil and gas fracking fields very quickly – the Eagle Ford Basin in the US had zero wells in 2008, now there are 27,000 oil and gas wells (all connected by roads and pipelines) polluting the landscape across thousands of square kilometres;
- This initial project would use 2 BILLION litres of precious groundwater for drilling and fracking of just 20 wells. If successful, the company would then proceed to drill and frack hundreds of wells over coming years, using tens of billions of litres of groundwater;
- The groundwater and aquifer connectivity in the area are poorly understood;
- Previous onshore oil and gas wells in the Kimberley have been found to be leaking by members of the public, releasing unknown volumes of climate damaging methane, which is 80 times worse for the climate than CO2, into the atmosphere;
- Wastewater from test fracking in the Kimberley has been found to be radioactive;
- Wastewater from the onshore oil and gas industry has previously overflowed from a dam into the surrounding landscape in the Kimberley;
- Time and again it has been shown that the Department of Mines and Petroleum cannot regulate this industry effectively;
- It will destroy, fragment and pollute the habitat of threatened species like the Bilby and critically endangered Freshwater Sawfish;
- It would pose an unacceptable risk to the National Heritage-Listed Martuwarra Fitzroy River, which is downstream of the Valhalla fracking project – carcinogenic chemicals and radioactive wastewater would contaminate the area forever;
- Fracking these 20 wells would release ~1.6 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution - which is equivalent to the emissions from 1.6 million cars in a year (or more than half of the annual emissions from Muja coal-fired power station.
I call on the WA EPA to reject this proposal due to its unacceptable environmental impacts on and risks to the globally significant Kimberley landscape, threatened species, water, heritage and communities as well as the impacts to the climate.
Yours Sincerely,
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