THE Greens are calling for a coal seam gas exploration licence in the Shoalhaven to be immediately revoked.
Greens NSW MP, John Kaye, visited the region last week to discuss the issue with concerned local residents.
He said the Department of Primary Industries' decision to grant the licence to Planet Gas was something that should have been discussed with the community - but never was.
Residents simply woke up one day to learn that gas exploration in the Shoalhaven was a real possibility.
Mr Kaye said the current area of concern was in the southern Illawarra and northern Shoalhaven but given the region's geological structure there was nothing to stop gas exploration as far south as Ulladulla.
Ward 3 councillor Amanda Findley has already raised the issue in council but her calls for a moratorium on gas exploration in NSW were ignored.
She has since accused her fellow councillors of attempting to 'bury' the issue.
Council agreed to hold a briefing session in the coal seam gas exploration issue and will hear from a Department of Primary Industries spokesperson on May 2.
Mr Kaye said he would be taking up the issue in State Parliament as soon as it returns.
He told the Times that he would be calling for an inquiry into the coal seam gas industry including its real cost to the community.
He said he would also be calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas exploration.
Mr Kaye said the licences should be cancelled and the Department of Primary Industries "forced to go back to square one and talk to the community".
While there might not be a legal requirement for the State Government to do so he said there was certainly a moral requirement.
Mr Kaye said the "terrible consequences" of coal seam gas exploration on the environment and public health had been well documented in the film 'Gaslands', which screened recently at arcadia cinemas in Ulladulla.
Similar problems - although not to the same extent - were already being experienced in Queensland.
"We don't want to go there," he said last week.
Mr Kaye said the environmental benefits of coal seam gas as a clean energy source were questionable to say the least.
He said coal seam gas extraction came with the risk of contamination of valuable ground water and would inevitably produce vast quantities of highly saline water that would need to be treated or evaporated.
He said extraction also involved a "huge leakage" of highly potent methane gases - 21 times more potent than CO2 - that negated any environmental benefits.
Mr Kaye said the virtues of coal seam gas extraction were "at best debatable and probably not there at all".
He said people shouldn't be willing to sacrifice the environment "for a fuel source no better than coal in terms of impact on climate".
Mr Kaye urged local residents to get "engaged and educated" on the issue of goal seam gas or run the risk of being "rolled over the top of".
He is encouraging Shoalhaven residents to throw their support behind The Greens' call for an inquiry into coal seam gas and a moratorium on exploration and also to contact Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock with their concerns on the issue.
Mr Kaye said Mrs Hancock should be using her position as a member of the O'Farrell government and Speaker of the House to help protect her community.
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