New South Wales Coal Seam Gas Review's Initial Report: July 2013. (August 1, 2013)

New South Wales Chief Scientist & Engineer, Professor Mary O'Kane, was directed this past February by the Premier, Barry O'Farrell, to conduct an independent review of the state's coal seam gas activities.

On July 30 Professor O'Kane released publicly an initial report from the independent review. It contains a number of recommendations for the NSW Government, which hold the O'Farrell Government's "feet to the fire". It will be interesting to watch its reaction.

In the next phases of the Review, Professor O'Kane is expected to address in more depth the principles that:

• can underpin setbacks and exclusion zones;

• international best practice;

• risk characterisation and mitigation;

• as well as undertake a comprehensive study of industry compliance.

The independent review is expected to continue well into 2014.

Professor O'Kane's initial report of 174 pages can be download here. In it she emphasises that "this report recommends the NSW Government commit to adopting a vigilant, transparent and effective regulatory and monitoring system to ensure the highest standards of compliance and performance by the CSG industry [and] as a first step, the Government needs to institute a strong and sophisticated policy for data collection and data handling, and establish a whole-of-environment data repository. The Government should also implement stronger conditions around the training of CSG operators, and champion further research on the unanswered questions around the science of CSG".

Here we reprint the report's list of five overarching recommendations.