by Peter Ralph
Although Joanna’s property was neglected after her death and quickly became over-run with weeds, the neighbours were surprised to see a bulldozer demolish the house and destroy what was left of the garden. Soon, huge trucks carrying gravel, arc lights and engineering equipment roared along the unmade roads at all times of the day and night, terrifying the locals and throwing up a constant haze of red dust. Progress, industry and exploitation took the place of peace and tranquillity. The flimsy, old front gates to Joanna’s property were replaced with heavy steel gates that were padlocked, and large placards were affixed to them announcing: CEGL Private Property Trespassers will be Prosecuted.
It wasn’t long before gangs of men employed by CEGL and an American company, Filliburton, were working on the property around the clock, seven days a week. Armed with heavy equipment and truckloads of gravel, they extended the track to the east and west boundaries, where they ripped the vegetation from the ground, levelled it, and constructed two large, hard-standing pads measuring one hundred metres square. Portafabs were quickly positioned around the perimeter of the east pad and light towers powered by diesel generators were installed. Two pits were excavated: one for collecting the saline-laden, toxic wastewater, and another for collecting drill cuttings and for flaring in case of striking methane pockets while drilling.
When the pits were completed, a convoy of semitrailers brought in components of the first drill rig. Under the direction of tough, hard-cussing area supervisor, Frank Beck, the men quickly assembled these in much the same way a child assembles a Meccano model.
Beck, from Colorado, was a Filliburton oil and gas veteran whose remuneration was based on the number of wells he could sink. An ex-marine of medium height and heavyset build, it was obvious that his nose had been broken many times and his sandy hair was cropped in a style that said he was still a marine.
After he quit the services, he got a job with Filliburton, working as a labourer on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to assistant foreman, his toughness and ability to get things done coming to the fore. These attributes did not go unnoticed and he soon found himself in charge of installing drilling rigs on coal seam gas projects in Wyoming and then Colorado. Private landowners were no match for him and he sank countless wells on their properties.
Streams and aquifers were polluted, methane seeped into houses, and the sound of drilling and compressors was never-ending. Folk living in close proximity to the wells collapsed after breathing the heavily-contaminated air, and others were afflicted by cancers and dermatitis. The government, the EPA, and the Colorado Gas and Oil Conservation Commission, which were meant to protect citizens, did nothing. The landowners screamed, there were threats of legal action, there were death threats, there were rowdy town meetings and in some instances gas wells were sabotaged, but for Beck it was like water off a duck’s back and he arrogantly stared the Colorado gas dissidents down. The good citizens of the Fisher Valley held no fears for him.
Drilling began two weeks after the first gang entered Joanna’s property. The first rig drilled down to a depth of about ten metres before it was replaced with another rig with a smaller diameter drill which extended the bore to two hundred metres. Arc lights lit up the pad and the neighbours could see and hear the drilling twenty-four hours a day. Beck never left the site, shouting and cajoling his men to work faster. Hundreds of trucks roared onto the site carrying steel pipes to reinforce and enclose the well, and cement was forced down the bore hole to encase the exterior. A blowout preventer was installed at the surface and pressure-tested to confirm the integrity of the casing cement. This was done in an attempt to prevent gas or water leakage around the casing, as the consequences of toxic fracking chemicals entering the aquifers was too horrible to contemplate.
Hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ is a process where water, sand and toxic chemicals are forced down well-bores in huge volumes under enormous pressure to break-up the coal seams hundreds of metres below the ground, so methane can be released. For the gas companies, the great thing about fracking is that, when the methane pressure and recovery decreases, the well can be fracked again and again; sometimes up to twenty times. The National Water Commissioner warned of the risks involved in large volumes of water being extracted, the depressurisation of coal seam aquifers and the disposal of large volumes of treated wastewater. However, when CEGL threatened to withdraw their massive investment from the valley, the federal minister rolled over in favour of the company and disregarded his commissioner’s findings. This, despite the very real risk of contaminating the valley’s drinking water, the Blaxland River and its tributaries and the water used for livestock, crops, vineyards and wineries.
It took just twenty-eight days to complete the drilling and then the steel pipe and concrete casing were perforated at the level of the coal seams so that the toxic fracking concoction could be forced through the perforations. Engineers and scientists employed by CEGL were adamant that the poisonous cocktail they were pumping into the coal seams could not escape or seep into the surrounding aquifers and streams. However, this was exactly what had occurred in Colorado.
When the first exploration well on Joanna’s property was ready for fracking, trucks delivered sand and fracking chemicals while tankers brought in hundreds of thousands of litres of water to be pumped down the well-bore. Hydraulic fracking opens the cracks already present in the coal seams’ gas reservoirs and the sand keeps the induced fractures open, ensuring an uninterrupted gas flow. No-one on site knew what the fracking chemicals comprised. Filliburton described them as additives and claimed they could not reveal their contents, as they were proprietary, just like Coca Cola’s famous formulae.
Beck had fracked hundreds of wells but the process still excited him. Often the ground shook as the coal seams fractured, at other times a fizzling sound emanated from deep within the earth, and sometimes the physical impact was minimal. When the first well on Joanna’s property was fracked, it was as if the area had been hit by a mini earthquake and Beck high-fived his workers and grinned with satisfaction. No-one from the government or EPA had attended the well-site.
Dean Prezky owned three properties to the west of Joanna’s property, totalling about one hundred and thirty acres. He was a strapping young man in his mid-thirties with dark black hair, powerful chest and arms and a deep tan from the days he spent working outdoors as a carpenter. He had built a rustic house, complete with solar panels that powered his property for ten months and in the two coldest months he used a diesel generator. A water well had provided fresh drinking water since 1920 but Dean also installed two ten-thousand-litre water tanks that caught rain for use in the house, allowing him to use the well as a reserve. There were five dams on the properties and Dean and the kids used one as a swimming hole. Like Joanna, he too had bought rich black soil - but in far greater quantities - and had used it to build a large fruit and vegetable garden to make his family self-sufficient. He craved privacy and his goal was to buy the adjoining properties until he owned around five hundred acres, which he reasoned would finally put enough space between him and the outside world.
When Dean complained to Frank Beck about the bright lights on the well-pads on Joanna’s property, he was met with profuse apologies and assurances that they would be repositioned so as not to shine into the windows of his house. Dean wasn’t someone to stand in the way of progress and during the conversation with Beck he agreed to let Filliburton access his properties during the day to transfer materials and speed up the completion of work. He’d heard stories about how the gas wells would change life in the valley for the worse but he had ignored them, guessing that it was just the whining of a few millionaires trying to shield their hobby vineyards and horse studs. He had little sympathy for the Fisher Valley Protective Alliance and believed that the gas companies might one day provide his children with jobs.
Dean loved his lifestyle, had no intention of ever selling his properties and thought that finding gas woul
d increase their value, enabling him to increase his borrowings to buy more properties. He was impressed that Filliburton was doing its best to control the red dust haze by using tankers to spray water on unmade roads and, when Beck asked him if he would like the tracks on his properties watered, he leapt at the opportunity. However, when asked if he would agree to pipes being laid under his property so that gas could be transferred to CEGL’s central compressor station, he refused to even consider it.
As fast as they appeared on Joanna’s property, the workers were gone, leaving behind two well-heads and ancillary equipment, enclosed by chain-link fences with warning placards attached. Flames burned from the flare stacks while meters measured the rate of gas flow, to determine whether the exploration wells would be converted into producers.
For Dean Prezky life was soon to become hell on earth.
Chapter 5
Six weeks after Beck and his workers departed, Dean and his kids broke out in nasty, itchy red rashes on their legs and upper bodies, resulting in ugly, painful, weeping wounds. The local doctor referred them to a dermatologist in Paisley who immediately diagnosed dermatitis and then questioned them about changes in their lifestyle and diet. Dean said nothing had changed and that the food and drink they consumed was the same as it had always been. The dermatologist was puzzled, as he had recently seen two other families from Tura who had displayed near-identical symptoms and who had been equally adamant that nothing in their lives had changed. He prescribed creams, lotions and tablets, some of which were not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. By the time Dean headed home, he was out of pocket nearly $800, which he could ill afford.
That night he lay in bed scratching, tossing and turning. He heard the children going to the toilet and then washing their bodies while crying in frustration. Normally he would have told them to get back into their beds but he didn’t say a word, knowing the hell they were going through.
Just before dawn the house was quiet. The kids had finally dropped off from exhaustion, but Dean was wide awake, staring up at the ceiling. Again he went over the dermatologist’s questions and again he drew a blank. He listened to his wife’s peaceful breathing and not for the first time wondered why Vicki had not broken out in a rash. What was she doing that was different? They did everything together: they ate the same meals, drank the same milk and water, tended the fruit trees and vegetable gardens and the only fertiliser they used was horse manure.
As sunlight filtered through the windows, he looked at the bloody streaks on the sheets and decided to take a quick dip in the dam. Then it hit him. The only thing Vicki wasn’t doing was swimming in the dam, saying that the early spring weather wasn’t warm enough for her to venture into the cold water. He sprang out of bed, threw on a pair of shorts and his work boots and went to the kitchen, where he found two of Vicki’s bottling jars. He ran down to the dam, his muscular legs carrying him easily over the rough surface. At the dam’s edge, he knelt down and dipped the jars into the water before holding them up to the early morning light. The water looked clear and he sighed in exasperation as he trudged back to the house.
The kids were usually up by now but he heard no voices, only Vicki moving around the kitchen and the whistling of the coffee percolator. ‘You look like hell,’ she said, staring into his bloodshot eyes. ‘And what have you got in my good jam jars?’
He quickly explained his theory and his disappointment about the clarity of the dam water.
‘Honey, you may be right. What did you expect to see? Amoebas floating around in the water? Just because the water appears clear doesn’t mean that it’s not contaminated and the only way you’ll find out is by chemical analysis, which we can’t afford.’ She sipped her coffee.
‘You’re right. Just because it isn’t murky doesn’t mean anything. Perhaps I could phone Josh Gibson and see if he can get the police lab to analyse it?’
Vicki put her arms around his neck, her firm, full breasts pressing into his chest. ‘The police lab’s there to track down murderers and analyse the saliva of drunk and drugged-out drivers, not find the source of dermatitis.’ She laughed. ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong and I think you and the kids should stop swimming in the dam.’
‘You’d better get them up, or they’ll be late for school.’
‘They had a terrible night and I’m going to let them sleep. Missing one day won’t hurt.’
‘Good idea,’ Dean said, deep in thought. ‘But, if we don’t get the water analysed, we’ll never know if it caused the dermatitis. If it clears up, we’ll just put it down to the medicine and creams.’
Two hours later, Dean was phoning the laboratories listed in the Yellow Pages. From each call he learnt something and the standard question he was asked was what contaminants he expected the analysis to detect? He had no idea how to answer and, by the sixth call, thought that he was beating his head against a brick wall. It was then that he spoke to a technician whom he could tell was of advanced years, who patiently listened to his plight, occasionally asking a question.
‘Have there been any road works recently undertaken near your property?’
‘No.’
‘Have there been any excavations on or near your property?’
‘No.’
‘Has any aerial plant spraying taken place in the area where you live in the past few months?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not sure we can help you, Sir. You say that you’ve been swimming in the dam for years without ever experiencing rashes before. There’s been no disturbance to the land or air that might’ve changed the composition of the water, so it’s highly unlikely that the dermatitis resulted from swimming in the dam.’
‘Did you say disturbance to the land?’
‘I did.’
‘Well, they recently fracked two coal seam gas wells on an adjoining property, but they’re about two kilometres from the dam, so I guess that doesn’t help.’
There was no response from the technician. ‘Hello, hello, are you still there?’
‘Mr Prezky, if you send the water samples to me, together with a cheque for one thousand dollars, I’ll see what I can do. It could be up to two weeks before we have any results and, even then, the analysis may not reveal anything. I do have something in mind though and, if I’m right, you’ll have your results very quickly.’
‘What do you think it is?’
‘I can’t say yet. Be patient Mr Prezky. I’ll get the results to you as soon as I can.’
Dean wrote the cheque but didn’t fill in the butt, knowing Vicki would go crazy if she discovered his extravagance, even if he could justify it. He taped the lids on the jars, tore some old newspapers into tiny pieces and packed them and the jars into a cardboard box, so they couldn’t move or break in transit to Sydney. Thirty minutes later he was in Paisley, despatching the consignment.
That night, while the rashes remained inflamed, the itching eased and Dean and the kids finally experienced some relief. Vicki attributed this to the creams and lotions. By nine o’clock everyone was sleeping soundly. Five hours later Dean sat bolt upright in bed, awakened by the sound of whirr, whirr, whirr that he had never heard before.
‘What’s that?’ Vicki groaned.
‘I don’t know, but it seems to be coming from CEGL’s property.’
‘They can’t be drilling another well, can they?’
‘We’ve never heard a noise like that before, so I doubt it.’
‘Do you think it could be coming from the Thompsons’ property next door?’
‘Nah, old man Thompson hates the gas companies and said he’d put a bullet in the first CEGL employee that tries to set foot on his property, so it’s not coming from there.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘There’s nothing I can do tonight. I’ll check it out first thing in the morning.’ Dean buried his head under a pillow.
‘It’s such a horrible, droning noise.’
‘Go to sleep, Darling. There’s nothing we
can do about it tonight.’
Chapter 6
The National Advocate was the first major newspaper to question the veracity and safety of extracting coal seam gas in Australia. In a small article, hidden at the bottom of page twelve, it outlined the American experience, where oil and gas companies had sunk hundreds of thousands of gas wells, with support of legislation which exempted them from having to comply with either the Clean Water Act or Clean Air Act. The journalist wrote without passion about the poisoning of the water, the pollution in the air, the sickness and, in some cases, the unexplained deaths by cancer of those who had lived in the areas where gas wells had been sunk.
By midday the first emails and faxes, headed Letters to Editor - Coal Seam Gas were received, and by four o’clock they had reached avalanche proportions. They came from people living in the Fisher Valley, The Spurling Downs and townships in rural Victoria. Many correspondents were worried that their properties would be seized by the gas companies, others were concerned that national parks and forests would be littered with gas wells and some feared that the nation’s precious aquifers would be contaminated or depleted. However, the majority were concerned about cancer and protecting the health and well-being of their families. The journalist and the editor were staggered by the community outrage, so the following day they published a follow-up article, which profiled the activities of some of the gas companies, including CEGL. This time it was on page three, together with twenty of the more colourful responses in the Letters to Editor section.