Let the legal games begin

Linc Energy accused of wilful pollution over Queensland gasfields

• THE AUSTRALIAN
• OCTOBER 22, 2015 2:43PM

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Sarah Elks

Reporter
Brisbane
Resources company Linc Energy has been accused of “wilful” serious pollution of its country Queensland gasfields for five years, in what’s believed to be one of the nation’s largest environmental prosecutions.
A committal hearing has begun today in the Dalby Magistrates Court, west of Brisbane, testing five Environment Department charges against millionaire Peter Bond’s company after the most extensive investigation in the environment department’s history.
Linc is alleged to have wilfully and unlawfully caused serious environmental harm by allowing gas to leak between 2007 and 2012 at its underground coal gasification site near Chinchilla.
Prosecutor Ralph Devlin QC, for the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, has tendered 16 boxes of evidence — containing more than 600 documents — ahead of opening the case against Linc.
Barrister Robert Bain QC, for Linc, today flagged the company would object to the admissibility of much of the prosecution’s evidence, and successfully applied to cross-examine key expert witnesses.
The UCG test site was shut down in 2013.
The committal hearing, before Magistrate Kay Ryan, continues.