Coal seam gas water - water in need of a home ...

With 1 million litres of water evaporating a day, it seems a waste to waste it.

Chinchilla and Dalby are moving ahead to use coal seam gas water for their town water supply, with Dalby securing State and Federal government funding to use recycled water for non-drinking purposes.

Excerpt from the Courier Mail:

Precious drops evaporate

17 February 2007

An ocean of water is being left to evaporate only 150km from Wivenhoe Dam as southeast Queensland races towards level 5 water restrictions.

The water, extracted from coal seams by natural gas firms, is considered an industrial byproduct and pumped into shallow dams around Dalby and Chinchilla.

More than a million litres of water every day is evaporating from the five 6m-deep dams, which each hold more water than the 1000 megalitres the entire region uses in a day.

"It's an absolute sin," said Queensland Gas Company managing director Richard Cottee, who has lobbied unsuccessfully to get the state to take the water to ease the region's water crisis.

Coal-seam water is pure enough for cattle to drink, but requires treatment before it meets residential standards.

Treating and delivering the coal seam water to Brisbane would be much cheaper than the billions of dollars being spent on a Gold Coast desalination plant and $800 million pipeline to Brisbane.

Mr Cottee has estimated there is 50 million litres a day or more potentially available if the state built a pipeline.

The idea was studied more than a year ago and considered too costly and problematic.

See - Coal seam gas water - when will government listen?