A landmark case described by a District Court judge as "unusual" will hear how gas company Linc Energy allegedly contaminated strategic cropping land causing serious environmental damage to parts of Queensland's Western Downs.
Linc Energy is charged with five counts of wilfully and unlawfully causing environmental harm between 2007 and 2013 at Chinchilla.
The charges relate to alleged contamination at Linc Energy's Hopeland underground coal gasification (UCG) plant.
The trial will enter its second day today in the District Court in Brisbane, with crown prosecutor Ralph Devlin QC expected to begin his opening address to the empanelled jury later this morning.
Former Linc Energy scientists, geologists, and engineers as well as several investigators from the Queensland Environment Department are among those expected to give evidence.
Judge Michael Shanahan explained to jurors why this was a very different type of criminal trial.
"You've heard that the defendant in this case is a corporation that is currently in liquidation," Judge Shanahan said.
"Our law says that a corporation is a person that can be prosecuted and can be convicted of a criminal offence if it is proved to the required standard."
The Judge said no-one would sit in the dock and the corporation had applied to the Supreme Court for an order so that it did not have to defend itself.
"It is a somewhat unusual criminal trial," Judge Shanahan said.
The trial is expected to run for nine weeks but jurors have been told it could run up to three months.
