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With new tests revealing high levels of toxic chemicals present in soil and water at a Santos coal seam gas (CSG) site near Narrabri in the north of NSW, environment groups say it’s time to shut down the operation. The Wilderness Society and The Northern Inland Council for the Environment collected water and soil samples for testing from the area adjacent to the Bibblewindi CSG water treatment plant in the Pilliga Forest on 6 January, seven months after a spill of 10,000 litres of untreated saline CSG water.

FOUR separate leaks of polluted water have now taken place at a coal seam gas drilling site near Narrabri in northern NSW since June, the resources company Santos confirmed. The spills of contaminated water led to the detection last month of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and chromium, plus traces of petrochemicals in water and earth samples taken in the Pilliga forest area. The Wilderness Society commissioned the tests at an agricultural laboratory, and had the results cross-checked by an environmental scientist at the University of Newcastle.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS are calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining in the NSW, after toxic chemicals were detected in the Pilliga state forest six months after a toxic spill. Soil and water samples taken by the Wilderness Society showed high levels of a number of metals, in the wake of a June 2011 saline water spill at Santos's coal seam gas project near Narrabri, in northern NSW.

THE New South Wales Government should suspend all coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licences following reports toxic chemicals were detected in Pilliga State Forest, the Opposition says. The samples, taken by the Wilderness Society and tested by an independent lab, showed lead at five times the acceptable drinking water standard, arsenic at twice and chromium at 3.74 times the acceptable standards.

Dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals have been uncovered in water and soil around coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga State Forest in north-western NSW.

Soil and water tests from a coal seam gas project in the State's north show alarming levels of chemicals, including heavy metals like arsenic and lead.

The Department of Primary Industries is investigating possible environmental breaches by Eastern Star Gas. The Wilderness Society claims it has proof that a state forest has been damaged by run-off, from a coal seam gas drilling site.

AUSTRALIAN native forest is being woodchipped to be burned in Japan. Japanese power stations are burning the wood to create energy - a practice soon to be banned in Australia. Boral Timber executive general manager Bryan Tisher said Boral had sold a mix of plantation and native forest woodchips to Japanese power stations to be burned.

An endangered possum species that was devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires will face more trauma if logging of its habitat goes ahead, a court has heard. The bushfires halved the population of Leadbeater's possums to only 2000, a barrister for an environmental group told the Victorian Supreme Court on Monday.

MENTION Cape York and a vision of untouched expanses springs to mind, of lush rainforest and sandy, palm-fringed beaches, labyrinthine rivers, pristine waterfalls and wildlife-rich wetlands. However, a recent spate of mining proposals prompted The Wilderness Society to this week seek emergency National Heritage status for four areas on the Cape.