SF,I’ve dug up the following local news item from back in July....

SF,

I’ve dug up the following local news item from back in July. Note: it says that when the one-off approval for five megalitres of water dumping is completed after a few weeks, no more is permitted. It goes on to say MEL will be required to produce a long term management plan for the water which must be what still needs to be sorted out as mentioned in the other article above. It looks to me like they are stuck until this is done. If so, they should’ve been telling us that, shouldn’t they?

'One-off dump by Metgasco in Sewage plant approved
Wednesday, 18 July 2012

THE Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and the NSW Office of Water has approved an application by Richmond Valley Council to accept produced water from Metgasco's coal seam gas operations, council general manager John Walker (pictured) said today.

The one-off discharge of the water was required to meet a direction to Metgasco from the Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services, which licence Metgasco's operations.

Mr Walker said the EPA's decision to approve the council's application to vary its environment protection licence for the sewage treatment plant was made after the EPA received confirmation from the NSW Office of Water that it had undertaken a comprehensive review and had issued a concurrence for the disposal of the water at the Casino plant.

The EPA, NSW Office of Water and the Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services (DTIRIS) had worked closely in considering council's application.

"The NSW Office of Water's trade concurrence and the EPA's licence variation include strict volume and quality limits on the produced water permitted to be taken," Mr Walker said.

"The NSW Office of Water and the EPA are satisfied that the STP can effectively accept the produced water without compromising the environmental performance of the plant," Mr Walker said.

"Council will also undertake monitoring during the water delivery and treatment process and will report this to the EPA as required by the licence."

Mr Walker said this was not a long-term management solution, but will allow Metgasco to reduce the volume of stored produced water and thereby avoid the risk of potential overflows, while other management systems are put in place.

Mr Walker said the STP would begin receiving water as soon as all approvals were formally in place.

"The one-off solution to this issue is a good example of all parties working to achieve a sensible outcome. The produced water that is transferred will have no adverse affect on the operations of the plant and deliver a good environmental outcome for the community," Mr Walker said.
The Casino STP was licensed to take produced water from coal seam gas operations.

The environment protection licence variation permits the disposal of up to five megalitres of stored produced water at a rate of 100-300 kilolitres per day. It is expected that it will take several weeks to dispose of the produced water.

The variation does not permit any other disposals of coal seam gas produced water at the Casino plant.

The licensing and approval process for coal seam gas exploration is administered by the DTIRIS under the Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991 and Metgasco holds an exploration licence with DTIRIS.

DTIRIS has required Metgasco to develop a long-term water management plan which will address the disposal mechanisms for produced water.

The EPA investigated the disposal of produced water from the Metgasco facility to the Casino plant in June and found that no environmental harm or disruption to the sewage treatment process was evident.

A formal warning was issued to the Richmond Valley Council at the time as it was not authorised to accept produced water.