Strike Energy is working on a 20+ year Gasfield development called Greater Erregulla, in the Irwin/Mingenew/Three Springs area of WA's Mid West. They have not told the communities in the area how many wells it will drill in total, and how far out they will expand in future. And now they're also lobbying the McGowan Government to be able to export gas from this area(screenshot from news above). How about farmland, not gasland?!
They've submitted multiple parts of their plan to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), but new plans keep popping up. Where will it end?
The latest plan before the EPA is a new exploration project, the Natta 3D seismic survey that involves thumper trucks over farmland and bushland, over an area of 15,854 hectares (see map below).
Tell the EPA today if and why you object to this project.
Tick the box that you want them to Assess as a Public Environmental Review (PER), together with all of Strike's plans in the area.
Make sure to click 'Submit' on the final page after clicking continue.
We can’t leave this up to a private assessment between the EPA and the gas corporation! Deadline: this Thursday 9 September, at midnight!
Have your say by following this link to the easy EPA Consultation form.
Some tips to make it quick and easy for you:
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Steps:
- Enter your name and email address. You can leave the ‘Organisation’ box blank.
- Preferred option for decision: Tick Assess - Public Environmental Review
- Make a short comment. There's no required minimum length, you can just write one sentence, or a full A4 page. You can copy the tips below in if you like.
- Tick the box at the bottom, then click ‘Continue’ (this is the end, but one more click needed!)
- Click ‘Submit’ on the next page.
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Note: Anyone can make a comment, but if you have a link to the region, we suggest mentioning if you're a farmer, resident, landcarer, teacher, Traditional Custodian, tourism operator etc.
Some of the reasons might be;
- The high level of public interest and concern regarding gasfield development in the region.
- It’s adjacent to a proposed 20+ year gasfield development by Strike, starting with 6 wells and developing potentially into 10s or 100s more gas wells
- The failure to address cumulative impacts of the existing gas wells, new gas wells, processing plants, plus gas exploration and development happening in neighbouring areas including South Erregulla, Waitsia, North Erregulla/Lockyer Deep and surrounds.
- The project and related neighbouring developments will impact adjoining landholders and farm land, through air pollution, light and noise impacts, and increased risk of bushfires and weeds, without any rights for the community to say no or to veto the project.
- Impact of soil compaction on agricultural land and bush land.
- Significant biodiversity values, and the project will cause fragmentation, increase the spread of weeds and risk the spread of dieback into a dieback-free area.
- Increase in the risk of bushfire.
- Clearing 68ha of native vegetation, of which is 62 ha of low to moderate quality Carnaby’s Cockatoo foraging habitat
- The company understates the impacts, and we believe they should address the 20+ year total footprint of the whole Greater Erregulla Gasfield, including on EPA factors such as inland waters, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, human health, and social surroundings.
- The project will lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions at a time when the International Energy Agency says that no new gasfields should be approved.
- Concern about tight gas and fracking in the future, what are Strike Energy’s exact plans if they find gas, and tight gas (how many total wells are possible in the future, will the company rule out ever fracking if they find tight sands or shale gas?)
* The deadline to comment is midnight on Thursday evening (9 September 2021).
Tick the 'Assess - Public Environmental Review' option, and make a short comment with your reasons(and one or all of the points above, and anything you want to add!). Make sure you click on 'continue', and 'submit' on the next page!
We need affected communities to have the opportunity to have a say on the details. We can’t leave this up to a private assessment between the EPA and the gas corporations.
To read the full document that Strike submitted to the EPA, click here(PDF).
EPA webpage for this project is here.
Image below: Proposal map showing seismic lines over farm land and bushland.
Image below: Map of region (southern Mid West, Yamatji country) showing some of the other proposals or existing projects in the area.
