fracking risk is overstated and misrepresented, page-27

butcherboy,

Another example is the pongamia tree irrigation that Origin is conducting at Spring Gully CSG field.

There is no "contaminated" water produced by CSG. That is the biggest myth of the whole stupid, sorry saga.

The only thing is that it is slightly salty. But it's exactly the same water that guys like cowcockie are drawing out of their water bores and giving to their cattle.

And unlike the farmers, the CSG companies have nice big RO plants that clean up the water to drinking quality. It can be used for anything - crop irrigation, cattle watering, you name it.

It's a very valuable source of crystal clean water.

I don't think the anti-CSG movement even known what they are arguing against. On the one hand, they go on and on about this "toxic" water the companies extract from the ground and release, and in the same breath they decry the CSG companies for "draining aquifers" that farmers need.

The exact same water! We already know that toxic levels of chemicals are banned in frac fluids in Australia, and anyway, most wells aren't fracced and the vast majority of the frac fluid in wells that are fracced is recovered and disposed of as industrial waste.

So there's no toxicity introduced by CSG. Certainly not compared to the toxins introduced by farming as Dex mentioned in the original post. So is the water toxic or is it the lifeblood of farms?

Farming is much more damaging to the environment than CSG.

1. It clears far more land
2. It introduces far more toxins to surface water
3. It draws far more water from the Great Artesian Basin

So given that we accept farming, CSG is a minnow in terms of effects on air, land and water.