The APPEA believes that the fracturing enquiry recently announced by the Northern Territory government will merely reinforce the findings of previous investigations, which have proven that hydraulic fracturing poses minimal environmental risk.
APPEA鈥檚 CEO Western Region, Stedman Ellis, explained that the inquiry was unnecessary and risked delaying the exploration activity needed to encourage shale gas investment in the Australian state.
Safe practice
Ellis commented: 鈥淧roperly regulated, hydraulic fracturing is a safe, well-established and well-understood industry practice.
鈥淭he process has been used in Australia since the 1950s without incident. 91天堂原創wide, more than 2.5 million wells have been hydraulically fractured and nowhere has the process been identified as the cause of groundwater contamination.
Minimal environmental risk
鈥淭he outcomes of the numerous inquiries, reviews and studies that have already been held in Australia and overseas should be more than enough to reassure Territorians that hydraulic fracturing poses minimal risk to the environment.
鈥淔or example, the highly-respected Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) last year released a 252-page study, peer-reviewed by the CSIRO, which is a comprehensive scientific statement on shale gas operations in Australia.
ACOLA report
鈥淭he ACOLA study, which had been commissioned by the Commonwealth government, found that hydraulic fracturing, if robustly regulated and adequately monitored, presents a low risk of environmental harm.
鈥淎PPEA urges the Territory government to look to authoritative references like the ACOLA report as a starting point rather than initiating yet another 鈥榞round zero鈥� examination of well-travelled ground.鈥�
The ACOLA study can be found .
Adapted from press release by