Barrow Island

Tuesday, 20^th November 2018

Greens MP Robin Chapple has raised concerns that any further industrialisation of the Burrup Peninsula would accelerate pollution levels, potentially making the air quality of the Karratha area one of the worst in Australia.

According to a recent report by the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Karratha based post code area of 6714 currently has 38741283.97 kg of emissions in the air, from 31 polluting facilities.

This places it as the 10^th most polluting post code in all of Australia.

Alongside Newman, which ranks 2^nd in Australia with 199441803.1 kg of emissions from 15 polluting facilities, the Pilbara area is one of the most heavily emitting regions in the nation.

Mr Chapple said that not only was the Burrup Peninsula under threat, but that WA is disproportionately contributing to climate change.

“The IPCC report recently released says that we have around a decade to act to avoid catastrophic climate change, and meanwhile the McGowan Government is championing further industrialisation in the North West.

“It is environmental vandalism of the highest degree. We are quite literally trashing the climate for future generations.

“Due to fossil fuels, pollution is so bad along the Pilbara coast that weather radars often show rain even on the sunniest of days. This is absolute madness.

“We simply cannot afford to further shirk our responsibilities to combat climate change, and with a truly incompetent federal Government it is even more urgent for the State to up their game. Instead, the McGowan Government are pushing on blindly ahead with climate wrecking projects.

“We need action on climate change and air pollution now. There is simply not enough time, we must rapidly transition to renewable energy or face the consequences of people dealing with not only polluted air but an extremely volatile climate too.”

Media contact: Liam Carter – 0449 151 490

Report: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5115779/ACF-Pollution-Report.pdf

Wednesday 9th May 2018

Questions by The Greens (WA) in Parliament have confirmed a major breach by the Gorgon Gas Project of its environmental conditions, claimed just last month by the Premier to be ‘the tightest regulations in the world’.

“The Environment Minister has confirmed that in addition to completely failing its promise to inject all, or at least 80 per cent over a five-year average, of its reservoir CO2 emissions from gas processing underground, Chevron is further failing to offset these emissions by other means,” the Greens WA Environment spokesperson Robin Chapple said.

“This is in direct breach of conditions of ministerial approval for the project, which require that should carbon dioxide injection fall significantly below the target level, the Gorgon proponent must find other means to offset the emissions.

“The Minister confirmed that since gas processing began on Barrow Island more than two years ago, not one tonne of reservoir CO2 removed in gas processing has been injected underground. Industry members are not expecting improvement on this any time soon.

“The Minister further revealed that the Government doesn’t know how much reservoir CO2 Gorgon is instead venting directly to the atmosphere. Yet Gorgon’s own estimate in its 2015 greenhouse gas abatement program was that it would be between 5.5 and 7.8 million tonnes of CO2 a year for Gorgon’s first two year of operation – equivalent to total emissions of several coalfired power stations.

“The Barnett Government, aided by the Federal Liberals helped create the mess but the ALP has been in power over a year and it is time they enacted clear promises made in their 2017 election platform document to tighten up reporting, transparency and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions by WA’s worst polluters.

“Gorgon, largely owned by Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, is easily WA’s biggest polluter and despite the Premier’s fanciful statement, the strongest contender for the least regulated.

“The Greens ask the McGowan Government to simply enforce the environmental conditions that even a former Liberal State Government considered appropriate to impose on Gorgon in 2009 – that is, for Chevron to offset the emissions that it fails to inject underground.”

• Ministerial Statement No 800, Condition 26.2, requires the Gorgon partners to ensure that an average of at least 80 per cent of CO2 extracted from gas reservoirs over any five-year period is injected underground.
• Should injection fail to occur (as has been the case since operations began in March 2016) Schedule 3 requires: “the Proponent shall report on: a) measures that could be implemented that would ensure that target level set in Condition 26.2 is met or, if injection is not considered feasible for all or some of the gas, measures to otherwise offset; and b) which if any of these measures the Proponent intends to implement”.
• Refer: http://www.epa.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/Ministerial_Statement/00800.pdf

Media contact: Liam Carter – 0449 151 490