derm, page-49

DERM - have not even bothered to acknowledge or respond in anyway to either of my emails. I also emailed Dorothy Pratt about 4 weeks ago - it amounted to about 10 printed pages loaded with facts & comprised some pretty tough questions as well. Atleast I received an acknowledgement from her office but I have had no official response as yet.

DERM & the QLD Govt have carried out their threats from the "Kargaroo Court" meetings of the 27th July & 25th August. There were threats from both John Bradley (DERM) & Minister Kate Jones to shut down Cougar Energy permanently if it were proved that they contaminated underground water aquifer/s.

Remember two of the "Scientific Team" attended the last meeting & listened to all the hysterical nonsense about Cougar. Why did they attend the meeting? Shouldn't their role been impartial & not have their minds contaminated by the 80 or so locals who bothered to attend. Not all were anti Cougar.

So the first of DERM's & the Govt's threats has been formally announced i.e, the permanent closure of Cougar's Kingaroy UCG operations. It was a 99.9% chance from my reading of the meetings.

Will they now carry out threat number two - i.e, to impose a hefty fine on Cougar for "contaminating underground water" & not advising DERM "immediately" the pilot burn failed?

This from the ISP Summary Report.


"The Cougar Energy situation is concerning, with at least a casing breach of the bores, and the additional potential of an underground explosion, having released contaminated waters into the groundwater. The fact that the possible existence of an explosion has yet to be confirmed or ruled out............."

If there had been an "explosion" I would have thought there would have been associated subsidence!!!

The two scientists who attended the August meeting said that they had no knowledge of the UCG Industry & yet they have delivered this damning report - incredulous!

One "strike" & you are out Cougar for being 1 ppb above the Australian Drinking Water Guideline - this is a scandelous decision! In my opinion they should have been given another chance.

Has anyone thought whether or not the the vials or test tubes or whatever they are called, for taking the water samples could have been slightly contaminated in any way. May it only take a smoker for instance handling such items in the initial stages of packing to contaminate them? Two readings of 2 ppb is not my definition of contamination. Had the initial reading of 84 ppb benzene (laboratory error), been substantiated I could accept the decision to shut Cougar down.

Why does Australia have a ADWG tolerance of 1 ppb benzene anyway, when the USA is 5 ppb & the World Health Organisation 10 ppb. It probably would not have mattered if it was had been 10 ppb because Mrs Pratt said that any level of contamination above zero is unacceptable.

I bailed out this morning in disgust with the handling of this situation by DERM & the Government.