Fire water should only ever really be used to describe v. strong booze, not the state of an actual river in Australia.
But, here we are. Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham has chucked some footage from his recent trip to Queensland’s Condamine River up on Facebook, and it shows the water being permeated by strong surges of methane gas – a gas which is very, very flammable.
So he decided to light it. As you do.
The whole point of the clip is to demonstrate what Buckingham believes to be the effects of fracking in the region.
The practice, which is right up there on the Greens’ list of energy no-nos, disturbs the Earth to get to that sweet, sweet coal seam gas (CSG), and the Greens believe that meddling to be the cause of this flammable nastiness.
In the clip, Buckingham describes it as “a tragedy in the Murray Darling Basin.”
“This is the future of Australia if we do not stop the frackers across all states and territories… this is utterly unacceptable.”
For what it’s worth, there’s been some debate over the cause of the river’s increasingly gassy outbursts. A 2013 report posited it may be caused by underwater aquifers refilling and pushing the gas to the surface, or by the general effects of drought.
Speaking on The Project tonight, he also said he believed similar reports on the phenomenon from the CSIRO – which does actually take research funding from energy companies – may be bent in favour of the CSG industry.
While that’s a long bow to draw, the gas leaks remain curious at best, and indicative of serious environmental damage at worst.
Source and photo: Jeremy Buckingham / Facebook.
