Santos has started work on the $19 million first stage of a water management system at Leewood, a property on the Coonabarabran Road 20 kilometres from Narrabri.
The project will see a 900-metre long and 400-metre wide, 600-megalitre capacity dam, lined with impervious, high tech material and inbuilt monitoring devices, to receive and store water piped in from all Santos operations in the area.
The dam is expected to be completed by May 2014.
In the second stage of the project, a water treatment facility will be built to treat the water to a high standard, suitable for human consumption, Santos said.
The water will be variously re-injected into the aquifers, used for irrigation and be available to farmers.
“The pond will receive water from all the Pilliga operations so there will no longer be a requirement for water storage in Pilliga,” said Santos Narrabri manager, Kym Bailey.
“The treated water will be of very good quality - better than the town water supply,” Mr Bailey added.
The construction of the water treatment facility gets underway as the decommissioning, rehabilitation and replacement of the Bibblewindi water treatment plant is advancing and Santos continues the upgrade of existing coal seam gas facilities and prepares to resume new drilling activity in the Pilliga Forest.
Santos continues to target the development of over 1400 petajoules of natural gas reserves in and around the Pilliga Forest near Narrabri - the largest uncontracted onshore gas reserves in Australia.
The project could deliver 100 terajoules per day to the NSW market - about 25 per cent of the natural gas used by NSW homes, small businesses, major industries and electricity generators - by as early as 2016-17, the energy company said.
A workover rig completed rehabilitation on six wells in the Pilliga Forest during the first quarter of this year, with activity on a new corehole and pilot well drilling program expected to start in coming months.
Santos has received NSW Government approval to construct the two new purpose-built water treatment ponds for its coal seam gas operations in the Narrabri region.
“These ponds will be constructed on land owned by Santos outside the Pilliga Forest to minimise the current environmental footprint to ensure minimal ongoing environmental disturbance,” said Sam Crafter, Santos manager of community and government relations.
Santos sought government approval for construction of the ponds to enable the remediation and rehabilitation of areas within the forest affected by the water treatment facilities previously constructed by Eastern Star Gas.
Since the announcement of its commitment to the new purpose-built water treatment facilities in November last year, Santos has decommissioned four ponds and is rehabilitating 30 hectares of forest.
The company will lodge formal documents seeking approval for stage two of the water treatment facilities which will enable removal of natural trace elements and salt from the water produced from the local coal seams and allow over 80 per cent beneficial use of the treated water, Mr Crafter said.
Approval to treat the water on site will go through an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) regulatory process.
“Santos will operate to the highest standard and that requires construction of the new water treatment facilities,” Mr Crafter said.
“This will be the best solution from a long term environmental perspective and is a major component of our Pilliga rehabilitation.
“As previously reported, a thorough review of the existing water treatment facilities in the Pilliga Forest found they did not meet Santos’ standards.
“Santos shut down the water treatment facilities in December 2011, due to the previous history and ongoing integrity concerns and has since decommissioned and removed the facilities from the forest.
“The next stage is to remove the three remaining associated water storage ponds. This requires that the water currently in the existing ponds be moved to the new site, enabling Santos to fully remediate the areas around the existing facilities.
“Ongoing monitoring of the site where previous spills and facility integrity concerns were highlighted shows localised areas with elevated levels of salinity and naturally occurring minerals arising from water produced from coal seams and surrounding local soil.
“In addition to bicarbonate, sodium and chloride these minerals include aluminium, arsenic, barium, boron, cadmium, lead, manganese, nickel, and uranium.
“The detected levels are below those found in surrounding soils, and we believe pose no risk to people or the adjacent environment.
“However, it is in the interest of all concerned that the remaining ponds be removed and new ones constructed as quickly as possible.
“The new Leewood water management ponds have been designed by specialist consultants in accordance with the NSW Dam Safety Committee (DSC) guidelines.
“The NSW DSC oversees the entire design and construction process to ensure the dam is built as per the submitted design.
“Santos believes the approval for the construction of the new water treatment facilities is the best environmental outcome for the Pilliga Forest, jobs and local investment in the Narrabri region.”