IN FEBRUARY 2017, Santos NSW, however, presented its Environmental Impact Statement (EIA) for the Narrabri fuel project. It did not provide the New South Wales Planning Department with some of the required information, adding information on waste. Then, in 2018, after receiving 22,700 written objections, Santos produced his reaction and ignored waste disposal plans.
Now, until 2020, the evaluation report of the New South Wales planning department describes Narrabri Gas as “approving,” Santos does not provide any main points in its plan to sell massive amounts of salt waste or “crystallized brine” in landfills near the allocation area. . Investigators contacted local landfill officials who said they had not approached them through Santos and would not take their waste. It is the policy of the highest municipality not to take the waste out of the gates of its municipality.
Santos told another story, but paradoxically, they mention in their EIA that “most [discharge] services are for family waste from neighboring towns and homes and have limited capacity for more waste.” This was supported by Tony Meppem, former director of plans for the Council of the Shire of Narrabri, who indicated that the Narrabri landfill can only carry 12,000 tons of general waste according to the year (and is recently being expanded).
The general classification of forged waste refers to residues such as glass, plastic, rubber, plasterboard, ceramics, bricks, concrete, steel or paper that are soluble.
Professor Stuart Kahn, in his presentation to the Independent Planning Commission, said that the regulatory regime for waste control is:
«… it is suitable for the classification of containment needs of a giant mass of salt highly soluble in water”.
Coal vein fuel extraction (CSG) generates massive volumes of what the industry calls “co-produced water.” It is incredibly salty, cannot be used through farmers and heavy metals and other potentially dangerous substances, adding radionucleides such as strontium, uranium and polonium and elements such as fluoride, barium, cadmium and boron.
The cooked water is extracted from the coal veins as a component of the dewatering of the vein to allow the fuel to flow. Once on the surface, it is sent via collection lines to the processing facilities. Waste is treated with opposite osmosis. This produces two more waste streams. The first is called “treated water” or “permeated” and can be legally used for structure and drilling, dust removal, stock irrigation and crop irrigation. It is proposed that it may also be poured into Bohena Creek (controlled discharge) in periods of heavy rain.
One of Queensland’s many regional regulated waste control services networks (Image courtesy of Lock the Gate)
Remaining residual current (called discharge or retention) requires additional treatment. Santos proposes to build a “brine crystallizer”, which uses a lot of power to put salt and other ingredients in counterfeit waste. Salt can crystallize but is still soluble. These wastes are then expanded with more chemicals to allow it to be discharged as counterfeit general wastes at the landfill.
According to the EIS:
“Santos proposes to temporarily purchase the saline product on site in a weather-resistant structure, before it is disposed of off site in one or more facilities authorized for waste treatment.”
How long will it stay on site? Like other Queensland operators, will Santos’ specially designed garage services prevent these waste from leaking into groundwater? Disposal of these wastes can contaminate soils and water resources. It is expensive and is an uncalculated cost.
The Water Panel noted in the NSW Planning Assessment Report that the concentration grades of certain potentially hazardous chemicals (COPCs) in the water produced and their destination in the repair procedure are not provided in Narrabri’s Fuel Allocation EIA. The committee questioned Santos’ assumption that this waste is generally forged waste that can be deposited in landfills. Instead, they induced that it may have to be classified as hazardous waste, which should be disposed of in a special facility at a higher cost.
Despite a lot of cash and research, viable responses to the use of poisonous salt waste have been slow to emerge.
As detailed in this article in 2018, a company called Xenith Consulting won a $140,000 grant from the Queensland Ignite Fund to expand a concrete replacement composed of these wastes. However, the company’s patent is now invalid. “Xencrete” had to be a concrete substitute.
Earlier this year, a request for government data (public access) revealed that Santos NSW had attempted to supply soda brine to Aeris Resources, which operates the Tritton and Murrawombie copper mines near Girilambone, NSW. The idea of sodium carbonate brine is “an effective source of alkalinity” and RGS Environmental, a leading consulting company specializing in mining and rehabilitation, hired for studies.
Aeris Resources sought to know what approvals they needed to perform Santos brine alkaline rinse tests. They sought to treat acid waste ponds with salmuine waste from Saints that are alkaline. At the time of writing, the trial had not been approved by the EPA, however, last October, Santos told participants on a field women’s association bus tour that negotiations were continuing.
Australia’s only manufacturer of sodium carbonate and baking soda, Adelaide’s Penrice Soda plant, closed in 2014, leaving a lot of tea for South Australian taxpayers to erase. Prior to its demolition, an auction was held to allow those photographs to be taken through The Adelaide Autopsy.
Image of the interior of the Penrice Soda factory (courtesy of Autopsy of Adelaide)
Santos’ latest attempt to get rid of his tea to succeed in a memorandum of understanding with US company Natural Soda before this month. A “concept study” to tell a final investment resolution to produce baking soda in Narrabri has no final touch date.
Natural Soda produces pieces of non-public care such as toothpaste and bath pumps. The timing of this announcement can be interpreted as a half-hearted attempt to influence the final determination of Narrabri’s fuel allocation through the Independent Planning Commission, which visited the site with Santos on the day of the announcement. When natural Soda was contacted for more information about the agreement, they referred all questions to Santos.
Natural Soda is owned by Sentient Equity Partners, Australian players who also own Rincon, a Canadian company. Sentinel can be seamlessly connected to the Australian Minerals Council / PriceWaterhouseCooper and Deloitte. They helped launch the CSG industry in Queensland. Sentinel is registered in the Cayman Islands. Rincón has worked with ANSTO to expand lithium salt remedy techniques and has been concerned about lead recycling in Australia.
When will an investment decision be taken on the viability of a baking soda plant? Santos dropped another carrot right under the nose of the Narrabri network desperately for local labor. The proposal is only at the concept level and is based on the number of past failures, it is very unlikely that the “concept” will ever materialize.
The fuel industry continually proposes “new” uses of waste as a means of obtaining operational approval. To date, they’ve all failed. Meanwhile, salt waste volumes are expanding and adapting to a landscape feature as more and more garage ponds are built to accommodate them.
The estimate of poisonous salt produced through the allocation has doubled to 840,000 tonnes since the EIA’s publication in 2017. Waste calculations are confusing because the water produced and the poisonous salt are not the only evidence in the coal vein fuel extraction procedure. Debris drilling is known to involve drilling chemicals and herbal destructive substances.
There are two types of drilling waste: rock-based and coal-based, and each has another removal route. Rock debris will be removed on site using a procedure called “mix, flip, bury” and will have an average of 1,700 m3 according to the month. Santos estimates that about 3,000 m3 of coal waste will be deposited in landfills according to the month, and drilling according to the period would be about 165 tons according to the day or 4 B-Double loads.
Santos’ shareholders’ vision states that the company “will become the market leader in the operation of the safest and most economical [gas] facilities and infrastructure” in Australia. Is waste disposal a domain in which Santos will seek to lower prices in order to achieve this purpose for its shareholders?
The ICC requested an explanation on the elimination and reuse of revised salt volumes, most likely control options, their possible effects, and the post-expected approval process. It is imperative that the CPI read this unique factor in depth. Logically, unsustainable volumes of waste without a remedy or disposal pathway shown deserve to be a sufficient explanation to reject Narrabri’s fuel project.
Johanna Evans is campaigning lately for the state of New South Wales to be freed from CSG and bann unconventional gas throughout the state. She volunteers for Northwest Protection Defense. You can stay with Johanna on Twitter @jo_noCSG.
Narrabri’s fuel allocation is expected to be transferred to the Independent Planning Commission Government control of Narrabri’s fuel allocation leaves long-term uncertain
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