I have a technical paper written by Blindermann about this...

I have a technical paper written by Blindermann about this issue, specifically the groundwater monitoring program for the Chinchilla burn.

It makes the point that several UCG trials in the US in the 70s and 80s DID contaminate groundwater with phenols, benzenes, and other nasty cyclic hydrocarbons, because they failed to maintain this positive pressure gradient towards the gasifier.

Ergo at Chinchilla were well aware of this problem and all the Australian UCG companies will be certain to maintain the positive pressure gradient above all else. There has been 10 years of monitoring at Chinchilla in the system of water bores set up around the site and no contamination has been detected.

Of course this is unlikely to pacify those who, as chickenliddle said, just don't want to be pacified.

I can see their point, too. A single equipment failure could upset the pressure gradient and cause some nasties to escape into the aquifers that these towns rely on. If I lived in Kingaroy I would want a complete briefing from Cougar on how they propose to build redundancy into their systems so that this doesn't happen, and action plans on what they're going to do to clean up if an accident does occur.

There will always be some residual risk, but that's true of all forms of power generation. Coal pollutes the air and toxic tailings dams can fail as happened in the US. Gas plants can explode. Solar cells are toxic if broken. Even wind turbines kill birds!

Perhaps the people of Kingaroy would prefer a nuclear plant in their backyard?