Committee Activities

Disclaimer

The Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining ceased operating in November 2012. The statutory Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development is now in operation.

The Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining website is no longer being updated and maintained but remains here as an archive for your information.

The Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining is required to, at the request of the Australian Government or individual state and territory governments in accordance with their respective regulatory processes; provide expert scientific advice on coal seam gas and large coal mining proposals that are likely to have a significant impact on water resources. The interim committee meets each month to discuss projects provided to it and to form its advice.

The interim committee is also required to provide advice to the federal environment minister and oversee research to address the key questions about managing the impacts on water resources from coal seam gas and large coal mining developments. The interim committee has already held workshops with state governments, natural resource management bodies, industry and other stakeholders to scope priority areas for research in 2011-2012.

Committee Meetings
Committee Workshops

Committee Meetings

The Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining meets on a monthly basis to discuss its current work program. This includes providing advice, scoping research and identifying areas and the process for undertaking bioregional assessments. Meeting outcomes are reported by the publication of a communiqué and meeting minutes.

The interim committee meetings adopt a standard structure:

Standing Items - the interim committee's administrative functions including; adoption of minutes, correspondence, recording conflicts of interest and out of session decisions.
Research and Strategic - discussion of the committee's research and bioregional assessments program. For more information see Research Program.
Advice on projects submitted to the interim committee - discussion of development projects provided to the interim committee by governments. At the current time, the Australian Government is referring projects to the interim committee for advice where they require a decision under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. In the future this will also include discussion of projects provided to the committee by state and territory governments which are parties to the National Partnership Agreement on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development. For more information see Project Advice

Meetings details:

Meeting 7: 18-19 July 2012, Canberra

Meeting 6: 20-21 June 2012, Canberra

Meeting 5: 16 May 2012, Canberra

Meeting 4: 18-19 April 2012, Canberra

Meeting 3: 26 March 2012, Canberra

Meeting 2: 22 February 2012, Sydney

Meeting 1: 17 January 2012, Canberra

Committee Workshops

The Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Coal Mining has held two workshops to determine initial research priorities and the proposed bioregional assessments. At these workshops, the interim committee received input from state governments, industry groups, research providers, community groups and natural resource management bodies. The workshops have provided a forum to assess the current situation and inform identification of initial areas for bioregional assessments and research. The workshops contributed to determining the priority streams for research and knowledge acquisition and discussed the best practice and methodology for conducting bioregional assessments.

Workshop 2

Workshop 2: Assessment - Summary of Proceedings (PDF - 104 KB) | Workshop 2: Assessment - Summary of Proceedings(Word - 28 KB)

Interim Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam gas and Coal Mining