Controversial methane gas explorer, Sydney Gas Ltd., has failed to reveal that attempting to prove its yet unsupported claim of a $10bn methane gas reserve, will require drilling through water tables and aquifers which independent studies reveal would contaminate and diminish ground water, waterways and possibly the Hunter River. Sydney Gas, on behalf of itself and AGL, also proposes to drill for gas within 300 metres of the primary school in the Hunter vineyard Village of Broke and warns of the risk of explosion of this highly explosive gas. General Manager of Sydney Gas also warns of the risk of the migration of methane gas from its wells, which wouldn’t be detected for 2 years when vegetation, lawns and gardens, started to wither and die. Methane gas has already seeped from wells drilled in Stratford (Hunter Valley) in 2004 and was blowing off in water bores 300 metres away. The wells had to be shut down. Both Sydney Gas and the Director of Mineral Resources have independently stated: “that without community support there is no project”. Hunter Valley communities are as one in their vehement opposition to drilling through water tables, and drilling adjacent to towns and villages, so indeed there may well be no project to extract this gas, a gas in excess of 20 times more damaging as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

What Sydney Gas has failed to reveal is that attempting to prove its yet unsupported claim of a $10bn methane gas reserve, will require drilling through water tables and aquifers which independent studies reveal would contaminate and diminish ground water, waterways and possibly the Hunter River. Sydney Gas, on behalf of itself and AGL, also proposes to drill for gas within 300 metres of the primary school in the Hunter vineyard Village of Broke and warns of the risk of explosion of this highly explosive gas. General Manager of Sydney Gas also warns of the risk of the migration of methane gas from its wells, which wouldn’t be detected for 2 years when vegetation, lawns and gardens, started to wither and die. Methane gas has already seeped from wells drilled in Stratford (Hunter Valley) in 2004 and was blowing off in water bores 300 metres away. The wells had to be shut down. There is little Government regulation of the methane gas industry and this needs to be done before one more well is drilled.

Elizabeth, how do you test gas for permeability? Don't you test the coal for permeability? How is the permeability test related to the amount of water in the gas? Please provide evidence of your claims in this post in which you have clearly "drank the SGL kool-aid" of the Sydney Gas rhetoric but unfortunately put the words in the wrong order... just like your unfortunate claim of the eagles flying around the drill rigs. They were hunting the injured and distressed small mammals and reptiles that the drill vibration, noise and toxicity had disturbed! Is Hunter Valley Public Relations still engaged by Sydney gas following this huge strategic gaff?

Still no retraction or correction of the misleading and totally incorrect facts presented here by (NSW Labor Party contributor and 100% AGL Energy-owned) Sydney Gas "publicity officer Elizabeth Flaherty".