PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Western Australian Environment Minister Albert Jacob has reportedly muted calls to place a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the state, after the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) called for a moratorium on the practice.

The green body was responding to the Western Australian Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) decision not to assess ASX-listed Buru Energy’s Laurel formation tight gas exploration programme.

Earlier this month, the EPA said in its assessment that while the Laurel proposal raised a number of environmental issues, the EPA had decided not to pursue the matter.

The decision was open to appeal until Tuesday.

The ACF has called on Jacob to ensure that new plans for fracking were subject to a thorough environment impact assessment process, rather than being ‘rubber stamped’ by the state’s Department of Mines and Petroleum.

“It is vital to the continuation of high environmental quality in the Kimberley region, which underpins its other economic values, that the EPA conduct a thorough bioregional assessment of the potential for cumulative environmental damage from fracking,” said Kimberley project officer for ACF Wade Freeman.

“The Western Australian and federal governments know the public is deeply concerned about fracking. The industry strategy seems to be to rush these developments through without proper public or environmental scrutiny.  That is not good enough,” he added.

However, Jacob has reportedly said that the state government had no plans to follow in the footsteps of Victoria, which  placed a moratorium on fracking until at least July 2015 to allow for a community consultation process. The ban has remained in place despite the Gas Market Taskforce recommending that it should be lifted.

Buru’s project was currently subject to regulatory approvals and community consultations, but the company planned to undertake an exploration testing programme to determine the potential commercial use of tight gas in the Laurel formation.

The plan was to undertake 32 hydraulic fracture treatments in four existing vertical exploration wells about 90 km from Broome, and two in an area some 320 km from Broome.

Subject to the results, future drilling and fracking of horizontal wells could occur, as part of an appraisal process.

Fracking is the process of extracting natural gas from rock layers deep within the earth. It involves creating cracks in underground coal seams to increase the flow and recovery of gas out of a well.