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July 12th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Updated
A microscopic collection of worms and mites could play havoc with Santos’ biggest coal seam gas project in the New South Wales Pilliga State Forest.
The ancient, subterranean creatures that live deep in an underground aquifer are only one millimetre long and thinner than a human hair.
They are known as stygofauna and they play an important role in filtering and determining the quality of groundwater.
The new evidence about the stygofauna is contained in one of 1,800 submissions to the Federal Government opposing Santos’ plans to drill 18 gas wells in the Pilliga State Forest near Narrabri.
Santos had estimated the project could supply 25 per cent of New South Wales’ gas needs.
The Government will now use its recently-passed “water trigger” laws to determine if Santos can go ahead with the drilling.
Hydro-biologist Dr Peter Serov, who found the two new species of stygofauna, says the creatures could be at risk because they are extremely sensitive to changes in water quality.
“There needs to be a lot more rigorous sampling and monitoring of both water chemistry and biodiversity across the region to determine what the ultimate ranges of these species are and what their environmental requirements are at this point in time,” he said.
Blind, clear, subterranean creatures
Dr Serov says stygofauna are highly specialised organisms that have been around for hundreds of millions of years.
“They are a group that have adapted over millions of years to occupy a very, very specialised niche,” he said.
“Initially all of them would have been surface invertebrates, but due to the vast changes that the environment of Australia has gone through… they have colonised the subterranean environment and over time they’ve developed their own body forms to actually live exclusively in this situation.”
“They have no colouration, they’re usually totally clear or white, they have no eyes, they have specialised sensory organs that enable them to determine whether they’re going up or down,” Dr Serov said.
But Santos groundwater expert, Dr Peter Hancock, says he wants to know just where the tiny animals were found.
He says they may not exist in the deep aquifers that coal seam gas wells drill down to.
“The deeper coal seam aquifers are unlikely to have stygofauna in them. It’s the shallow alluvial aquifers that are most likely to have them,” he said.
But retiring New England Independent MP, Tony Windsor, who introduced the water trigger laws, says the scientific process must go ahead before the coal seam gas company moves in.
“We don’t fully understand the scientific nature of some of these groundwater systems and until we do at a scientific level, I think the political process should step back and the industry process should step back until we get the science right and then make the decision,” he said.
Topics:
oil-and-gas,
mining-industry,
mining-rural,
environment,
environmental-impact,
science-and-technology,
narrabri-2390,
nsw
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-12/4815736
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