SANTOS has been rapped over the knuckles for failing to prevent two pollution incidents at its controversial coal seam gas pilot operations in the Pilliga.
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The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) last week handed down the long-awaited findings of its investigations into separate incidents in 2013 and 2015.
The EPA found that while neither event “resulted in any significant environment impacts”, there were concerns with “aspects of the site operations and management”.
The first incident dated back to 2013 when elevated levels of salt and heavy metals, including uranium, were detected near its Tintsfield waste water holding ponds.
The EPA said it had “thoroughly investigated” the matter and found there was “insufficient evidence” to rule whether the metals were naturally occurring or from a leaking pond.
The second incident occurred in January when waste water from a pilot well spilled out of a vent at the oil and gas giant’s Dewhurst site in the Pilliga.
The EPA said that after “careful consideration” it concluded Santos had not breached the conditions of its environment protection licence.
EPA chief environmental regulator Mark Gifford said the company had been issued with two legally binding pollution reduction programs (PRPs).
“The PRPs require Santos to improve its groundwater monitoring and verify the operation of vents and flow lines used within the Narrabri gas field,” he said.
“We will be monitoring the implementation of the PRPs to ensure the company is meeting its obligations.”
EPA chairman Barry Buffier, who was in Tamworth on Monday, conceded investigations into the 2013 contamination incident had “taken longer than I would like it to take”.
He said the EPA was encouraging Santos to be more proactive with the public release of information relating to environmental incidents at its Pilliga operations.
“In this particular case, we think that Santos needs to be more responsive to the local community and needs to have slightly better systems in place,” he said.
“Because of the level of community anxiety around coal seam gas, our advice is to put more out there into the public arena, even though it might be quite a small issue and ultimately judged not to be material.”
Santos NSW general manager Peter Mitchley said the two investigations found “there has not been any environmental harm”.
“We operate our field to the highest standards to explore for and extract natural gas safely without harm to the environment,” he said.
“We note the EPA’s desire to discuss some possible improvements to our field operations. We will engage with the EPA to ensure continued confidence in our processes.”