THE idea that all gas opponents are hardened leftish eco-activists has been contradicted by a group of 32 Bentley farmers, signatories to a letter opposing any gas exploration in their area. When they started talking about pipelines and gasfields, that was the trigger point when I decided I better do some more reading about it, he recalled. For this gas thing to be viable, theres got to be roads and wells and a lot of infrastructure. They were not impressed by the idea of hydraulic fracturing - the stimulation method used to get gas to flow, and the copious amounts of water drawn out of the well and stored in dams. If its commercially viable, then what? We really have no idea where it will end, Mr Lowrey said. All farmers who signed the letter own at least 60ha of land, and many are descendants of original settlers, living on land only ever owned by the one family. What motivated the two of them to help formulate the letter was the stereotypical image of protesters being bandied around in Sydney and the national media. Our household became very annoyed when we were told we were anarchists trying to destroy the states economy - my family has been contributing to the NSW rural economy for 150 years, Mr Lowrey said.
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 22:44:50 +0000
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