How much water will the CSG industry use?

Australia's Great Artesian Basin and its underground aquifers are a vital source of water; farmers and other bore users are given allocations for their use.

By 2014, the Commonwealth will have spent nearly $150 million under the Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative, capping bores and fixing pipes to conserve water.
The coal seam gas industry is entitled to remove massive amounts of water from groundwater systems.
The Queensland Government says that if CSG mining causes groundwater levels to drop below specified "trigger" points then companies must "make good" to affected water users. The trigger points are:

• a five-metre drop in bore-water levels for sandstone and fractured rock aquifers;
• a two-metre drop in bore-water levels for alluvial aquifers; and
• a 20-centimetre drop in the water table surrounding springs.

While the Queensland Government has set out the make-good arrangements, there is concern over how these will actually work in practice.
For instance, Rabobank wants more certainty on the question of how CSG will pay for future reparations because some of the impacts may not be evident for decades. The agri-bank wants CSG companies to take out insurance for this.
The Queensland Farmers Federation has sought more information on how the burden of proof will be established and on making good cumulative impacts.
Others such as the Basin Sustainability Alliance want to know how make-good will be enforced.
In addition to these provisions, the forthcoming Murray Basin Plan will set limits on groundwater extraction, including by the CSG industry. The states must enact these limits by 2019.
There is a fierce debate about the amount of water the coal seam gas industry will extract from underground, and what impact it may have on the sustainability of the Great Artesian Basin.
The industry suggests it will pull out somewhere between 126 gigalitres and 280 gigalitres a year, while the National Water Commission puts the figure above 300 gigalitres a year. Others, including the Water Group advising the Federal Government, suggest it is higher still.
The infographic below compares the various published figures on water extraction by the coal seam gas industry.
To place this into perspective, those estimates have been compared to current household use and how much water is currently being extracted from the Great Artesian Basin.