I NOTE and appreciate your interest in AGL's Gloucester Coal Seam Gas project which was recently featured in the media on account of a high level of toxic BTEX chemicals in flowback water from the Waukivory pilot drilling and fracking late last year.

I know that a Gloucester based community group, which is concerned about various aspects of the project, has approached you. However I am driven to point out that there is a broader community affected by this project which has serious concerns about it and the lack of community consultation by AGL.

Whilst I live downstream from Gloucester in a different electorate and local government area, I and 75,000 other citizens rely on the Manning River for our water. This is the river whose headwaters are in the Barrington Tops and the Gloucester Valley. One of the tributaries, the Avon, runs right through the AGL project site.

One would therefore think that AGL would have included downstream citizens in its consultation program. That has not been the case.

Last year (on August 21) AGL held two small information sessions about its Extracted Water Management Strategy and this was at Gloucester. A request by the Manning Clean Water Action Group that information sessions be held downstream closer to the majority of water users has not been positively met even though AGL has been heavily advertising in downstream newspapers, such as the Wingham Chronicle and the Manning River Times, for most of last year and this year also.

Minister, it is not proper consultation when the community of affected citizens is not afforded an effective forum for a two way engagement. It is certainly the case that paid advertisements could never be construed to be evidence of consultation.

I beg you to consider these points when weighing AGL's performance with regard to community consultation.

Nawal Maharaj

Harrington