Campaigners gathered on Thursday at AGL's headquarters in Sydney, and at sites in the Gloucester Valley in the state's Mid-North Coast region, one day after the Baird government gave its nod to AGL using hydraulic fracturing methods - or fracking - of four wells within a few hundred metres of homes.

“We told them we won’t going to go away," Jennifer Schoelpple, a local farmer downstream from the proposed fracking, said outside the AGL offices in North Sydney. "So long as they continue to make our lives hell, we’ll return the favour."

Ms Schoelpple, one of about 25 protesters at the vigil, said residents are concerned that AGL's "steam-roller attitude" means issues such as contamination of aquifers and groundwater, fugitive methane emissions and a surge in truck traffic and noise would go unaddressed.

The Sydney campaigners presented a statement to an AGL official calling on AGL to commit "in good faith, to not conducting any coal seam gas activity within two kilometres of homes" at the Waukivory Pilot project near Gloucester.

A spokeswoman for AGL said a community relations manager had spoken to protesters in Gloucester on Thursday and “will continue to do so”, with the company taking a similar approach in Sydney.

'Beginning'

“Today is the beginning of a campaign of peaceful direct action to stop this fracking project,” said Julie Lyford, a former mayor of Gloucester and an organiser of the local Groundswell Gloucester group. “The government has failed to protect us.”

“There’s no coal seam gas exclusion up here, no gateway, no protection, no buffer," said Ms Lyford, referring to the two-kilometre exclusion zone from homes that the government has imposed on AGL’s CSG operations near Camden in Sydney’s southwest.

Ms Lyford said Minister Anthony Roberts’ office rang on Wednesday to inform Groundswell Gloucester the fracking had been approved, and within three hours AGL had begun moving heavy machinery to the site.

“People would be pretty dismayed by the signs of collusion between industry and government,” she said.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham predicted protesters who had succeeded in stopping gas drilling in the Northern Rivers region near Bentley would now gravitate to Gloucester.

“They know with this industry that once it establishes, it spreads like a virus,” Mr Buckingham said at the Sydney protest.

"AGL will sacrifice their corporate reputation for this toxic industry," he said.

Water studies

AGL and the government have stressed the project could eventually supply a fifth of NSW’s gas. They also say the fracking will be closely monitored to ensure impacts to groundwater and surface water are minimised.

John Watts, a spokesman for Groundswell Gloucester, said locals are angered AGL gained approved for its fracking even though the results of three separate water studies are either not yet known or still to be completed.

“It’s like saying ‘we’ll give you a driver's licence, subject to you learning to drive’”, Mr Watts said.

Ms Lyford said the studies are a bio-regional assessment by the Independent Expert Scientific Committee, a report by the Chief Scientist and one set up by AGL with the Gloucester Shire Council – in the wake of a previous blockade by protesters in late 2011.

Mr Watts said the Office of Coal Seam Gas had apparently relied on work by the Environment Protection Authority tapping the independent experts’ report in granting approval for the fracking.

“We’ve been seeking that information for nine months,” Mr Watts said. “The community’s not had a chance to analyse or examine those results – it’s not transparent at all.”

Policy tweak

Local concern about the government’s willingness to accede to AGL’s plans has also been stoked by its amendment of the State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) that cleared the way for the approval of the fracking without a full environmental impact study.

As reported by Fairfax Media, existing provisions placed the Waukivory wells within three kilometres of other wells – a distance then requiring an EIS that involving public exhibitions and lengthy consultation.

The SEPP, though, was amended just nine days after a public submissions period for the modification ended. The three-kilometre distance now applies from the centre of nearby wells rather than the nearest one.

As a result of the change, the Waukivory Pilot has been able to proceed under Part 5 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, effectively fast-tracking the process.

AGL’s chief executive Michael Fraser said the Stage 1 of the project had already been through "a full environmental assessment and received approval from the independent NSW Planning Assessment Commission" .

Work would be conducted "in a safe manner, minimising disturbance to the local community", he said in a statement to the stock exchange on Thursday.