The Department of Premier and Cabinet tabled its response via the Legislative Council Committee on Environment and Public Affairs' report on Tuesday, in which the government fully accepted six of the 12 recommendations, and partially accepted four others.
The government agreed to increasing maximum fines for breaches; that the Department of Mines and Petroleum should consult the Water Corporation or local provider in regulating fraccing activities and formalise its public disclosure of frac chemicals in law.
The government also agreed that oilers should be encouraged to explore wastewater recycling during fraccing operations where practicable; and for mandatory baseline monitoring of aquifers, and the publishing of that data, as part of the approvals process.
Finally, the government agreed that any further consideration of fraccing in the hunt for unconventional gas in the state be based on established facts, gained through baseline data and monitoring, with a view to strengthening the industry's social license to operate.
The problem is, activists don't want oilers to have a social license to operate at all.
Lock the Gate's Sydney-based WA coordinator, Boudicca Cerece, was particularly concerned with the government's failure to support a recommendation that the DMP refer all frac proposals to the Environmental Protection Authority.
"This does not go anywhere near far enough to providing protection for our water resources, our health, our food growing regions and our nature reserves," she said.
"At a minimum all fraccing proposals in WA should be subject to the most rigorous Environmental Impact Assessment available and required to have pollution control licences."
The government's Legislative Council Committee on Environment and Public Affairs said a memorandum of understanding between the DMP and the EPA had already been prepared, and was expected to have been signed by the end of last month.
The MoU includes a trigger that requires DMP to consult the EPA on all frac proposals.
The government stopped short of agreeing with the recommendation to set up a statutory body akin to the Queensland GasFields Commission, which successfully helped usher in that state's three CSG to LNG mega-projects by facilitating co-operation between landholders and resource companies.
However, the committee said the government was open to a similar body being established in the future, while pledging to continuing to improve existing mechanisms being used in WA, including the use of independent mediation, with input from the working group resulting from recommendation 6, which it supported in part.
That recommendation called on the government to set up a working group to include land owner representatives and community leaders to draft legislation for a statutory framework for land access agreements between the land owners and resource companies.
That framework should include provisions including compensation for land owners and the enforcement of mandatory access conditions, using Queensland's Land Access Code as a guide.
The committee noted that a joint committee chaired by former WA deputy premier and ex-Nationals leader Hendy Cowan had already developed a new model agreement for access to agricultural land in consultation with both the petroleum industry and farmer groups.
The deal was signed off by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, WA Farmers, Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA and Vegetables WA.
The government also partly supported a recommendation that it ban the use of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene during frac operations in the state.
Though it pledged to ban the "deliberate addition" of BTEX compounds to frac fluids, the committee added that the existing risk-based assessment, known to industry as "as low as reasonably practicable", already applies for all chemicals used in relation to their impact on surface and groundwater, and relating to personal exposure.
In doing so, the DMP consults with the water and health departments.
"It should be noted that BTEX is generally present naturally in petroleum formations," the committee said, and is also present in petrol and diesel.
"As such, it is impossible to eliminate them from petroleum operations entirely and they are managed as for any other industrial activity."
Laughable policy
Cerese said this concession merely highlighted the risks from fraccing flowback fluids, adding that neither the inquiry nor the existing regulations "even begin to address" the issues surrounding the safe disposal of large quantities of toxic fracking waste produced in unconventional gas operations.
"The government's reliance on the ALARP [as low as reasonably practicable] approach to risk assessment in relation to any chemical impact on surface and groundwater would be laughable if it wasn't so serious," Cerese said.
"The ALARP framework does not bear any relationship to environmental or health outcomes and effectively leaves it up to industry to do what is economically palatable in the way of pollution control.
"Overall, the government's response to the fraccing inquiry's recommendations confirms the public belief that this industry is being forced on rural communities without a comprehensive, enforceable regulatory framework to manage and mitigate the likely impacts."
She called for the implementation of legislated "no-go zones" to protect groundwater supplies, farming lands and bushland reserves, because as the government's response showed it "clearly wasn't listening to community concerns".
Industry endorsement
The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association welcomed the WA government's endorsement of a "fact-based approach to fraccing".
At the moment, unconventional exploration in WA hindered more by access to rigs, what companies believe to be onerous regulations, the remoteness of the shales, particularly in the Canning Basin, and the difficulty of the geology.
Such factors have driven the likes of ConocoPhillips to take their business elsewhere.
That said, APPEA chief operating officer western region Stedman Ellis said a regulatory regime based on established facts and underpinned by science was vital if WA's onshore gas industry was to reach its full potential.
"Numerous scientific studies and decades of practical experience have shown that any risks associated with hydraulic fracturing can be safely managed with proper regulation," he said.
"In committing to a fact-based approach, the government is providing the regulatory certainty required if WA's considerable supplies of shale and tight gas are to be converted into jobs and royalties for the state."
He called the government's decision to establish a working party to consider any changes to WA's current land access arrangements a "sensible approach".
"The voluntary land access agreement negotiated over several years by APPEA and peak farming organisations is providing a strong framework for coexistence and should be given more time before any changes are contemplated," he said.
"We also note that the working party will consider the inquiry's recommendation for a statutory body similar to the Queensland GasFields Commission to act as an independent arbiter in land access negotiations."
However, he said the regulation of fraccing in WA would be further strengthened by the government's support for many of the inquiry's other recommendations, indicating that the government's support did not go far enough.
