KATHERINE Town Council is calling on Mines and Energy Minister Willem Westra van Holthe to ban all new gas and oil exploration in the municipality as mining activity in the Northern Territory heats up.
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At the council’s ordinary meeting on September 23, mayor Fay Miller tabled a letter to Mr Westra van Holthe that requested “that the boundary of the Katherine Town Council is the exclusion zone for mining and exploration”.
Currently, only the township itself is excluded from mining exploration.
Ms Miller said she believed the entire municipality needed to become an exclusion zone in order to protect sensitive environmental assets like the Tindal aquifer and the Katherine River corridor.
In a response, which was also tabled at the meeting, Mr Westra van Holthe - who is also the Member for Katherine - said the Department of Mines and Energy was reluctant to turn an entire municipality into an exclusion zone, a move he said would “set a precedent for other communities to make similar requests for areas of special interest to them”.
While no municipality in the NT is entirely excluded from exploration, the government recently placed extended reserve blocks over areas around Darwin, Palmerston and Humpty Doo.
Ms Miller said the minister’s explanation was not acceptable.
“We’re a very small municipality,” she said.
“I don’t know how the rest of the Territory feels [about exploration] but I know there’s a fairly strong feeling here in Katherine.
“I’d certainly like to see them have considerable and frank discussions with us.
“I will certainly express the views of the majority of my community.”
Don’t Frack Katherine chair Charmaine Roth said she believed a precedent had already been set by the government.
“If they can do it for Darwin, just because that’s where all the voters are, why cant they do it here?” she asked.
“If those people have the right to protection, the rest of the Northern Territory towns and communities should have protection as well.”
Mr Westra van Holthe said, while it was unlikely the government would exclude an entire municipality from the resources boom, he was “pretty confident” further reserve blocks would be granted in Katherine.
“The precedent we don’t want to set is using a town council boundary to set the area for reserved blocks,” he said.
“I’m not prepared to set a boundary or reserved blocks based on a municipal boundary.
“It would be premature of me to comment just where, but I am confident that sensitive areas within the Katherine Town Council boundary would fall under some sort of reservation from oil and gas exploration.”