Archive for September, 2008
Whats Up with Melbourne Water?
Neil Avery ponders why the Victorian government is again pushing the proverbial up hill, wasting resources and energy while upsetting regional Victorians who have good reason to be concerned.
Leaving aside the politics of ‘North of the Divide’ water for Melbourne,
the decision to pump from the Goulburn River near Yea, back over the Dividing Range would seem to be the result of rather muddled and extravagant thinking.This water fell high in the Dividing Range and here is the logical place to harvest it. We need only to look back to the 1960’s when it was proposed that Melbourne’s catchments could be enlarged by diverting south, some part of the Big River – a tributary of the Goulbourn with its headwaters immediately adjacent to the Upper Yarra’s catchment.
History records that back then, politics won and Henry Bolte scotched the proposal, instead the Thompson Reservoir was commissioned. With the renewed interest in the South tapping into the North’s water, surely the most expedient and significantly cheapest solution is to harvest the Big River, where we are not talking of a massive storage reservoir but merely a small diversion weir – and let gravity do the work.
Neil Avery, Doncaster
So what’s going on with Melbourne’s water Premier Brumby, and why are you persisting with perverse policy which escapes both rules of governance and common sense? And why when we look at the project is an international coalition of the very willing swamping state management of water? The Military Industrial Simplex line-up includes Gutteridge Hasking Davey (GHD), Sinclair Knight and Holland Brown. Are we managing the sustainable use of water or preparing for war? Judging from the strong arm tactics used against protesting citizens, the latter assessment may not to be that far from the truth.
"It's a sad day for democracy": Farmer Deb McLeish had the backing of her extended family after being led away by police on her Yea farm yesterday.Photo: Paul Rovere
Victorian Water Minister Holding offers inexplicable and undefined guarantees and bypasses an environmental assessment process knowing the Canberra rubber stamp man is doing his job as predicted. Senator Nick Xenophon is rightly gob smacked by the apathy shown by the encumbent ‘environment’ minister :
“How can Peter Garrett sign off on a project that has the potential to devastate part of the river system and have implications for the entire river system, when the Commonwealth Government’s own audit of the system hasn’t yet been undertaken?” he asked.
“It just beggars belief.”
Senator Nick Xenophon, ABC’s PM, Sept 12, 2008
Ellen Hogan from the other alliance wants to know why these new ‘Water Lords’ have been given the green light on this odd project:
The north south pipeline corridor will reek havoc on the environmental values at the off take on the Goulburn, rip a 70km swathe through the Yea River valley, over the Great Divide and down into the Yarra Valley.
It will cut through floodplains, wetlands, require 187 stream crossings, remove old paddock trees and 80 hectares of the Toolangi State Forest not to mention all the other native vegetation in its way.
The project has the potential to cause severe sediment movement across the valleys, displace acid soils, increase saline water runoff (dewatering of trenches) pollute surface water and groundwater tables that in some areas are only 3 metres below the surface of this beautiful valley.
I have not even touched on a magnitude of other factors such as power generation, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon trading, traffic disruption on the Melba Highway, compensation to landowners and the infrastructure required.
As always, there is a simple solution thanks to the CSIRO – a kids game on water education helping to ensure future generations are not as reckless as the Brumby administration and the corporations now festering the corridors of Spring Street. If the ‘Alliance’ is not held accountable via standard government protocols and audits and cant demonstrate real value for people and the planet, maybe they should play another game and rate themselves on basic science…oh yes, and water does tend to run better and more easily down hill!
Recent Media:
Water wasted in public housing, The Age -
THE wheels have fallen off the Brumby Government’s rationale for spending $4 billion on a desalination plant at Wonthaggi and the north-south pipeline and so supply Melbourne with an additional 225 gigalitres of water.
When the MMBW was split up into Melbourne Water and three retailers, its engineering and planning skills and its corporate memory were blown away and the planning function was in effect transferred by the politicians to the developers and the big end of town.
Little wonder we have disasters such as the Brooklands Green estate development in Cranbourne. But at least what is going on here cannot remain hidden. Not so with water — the stench isn’t so obvious…
The water debate has been starved of the facts a good government confident of its policies would ensure were put into the public domain.
Further Information:
Plug the Pipeline Campaign site
The catchment detox game – great for kids and confused adults as well.
Recent Media:
The case of why water and corporations don’t mix: Falling use pushing up water prices – The Age, January 3, 09.
Figures Reveal – Climate Change Policy in Australia a Scam.
Startling statistics released today from the Bureau of Probable Statistics (BPS) reveal that Climate Change Policy in Australia is a total scam and no one need take it seriously. Edgar Pollfluff completed a ten minute study in the Australian City of Melbourne and returned to the bureau with some sobering statistics:
“Sixty five percent of Melbourne restaurants have between one and five outdoor LPG heaters and forty five percent of Melbourne households have between one and two outdoor heaters. Although the BPS is wary of ABS figures on this occasion we agree there are at least 16000 restaurants and cafes in Australia, meaning that in excess of 50,000 LPG heaters are employed to heat the outside environment”
Asked about the number of Australian residents heating the outdoor environment, Edgar was quick to respond:
“In the domestic sector of Australia between 150,000 and 200,000 outdoor heaters are in use in residential situations in Australia, probably.”
Questioned on the implications of these figures for Climate Change Policy and the credibility of Kevin Rudd, Peter Garrett and Ross Garnaut, Edgar was typically guarded:
The BPS is an independent bureau that reports probable facts and statistics, for us to make comment on the stupidity and duplicity of Australian politicians is not part of our function. The public can read into these statistics what they will, we make our research available to government and academia and even right wing think tanks are taking our research more or less seriously.
Asking why the Australians public and business owners would be so stupid as to think they can heat the great outdoors, Edgar had this to say:
We honestly dont know, but a BPS study completed yesterday suggests one in three Australians believe what politicians tell them and one in three also believe that burning LPG is greenhouse friendly. This correlates with another of our longitudinal studies that proves that probably about fifty percent of Australians watch too much television and have become fat and lazy dumb arses. While our data collection techniques differ from government ABS, we believe we reach much the same conclusions faster with minimal expense.
Rosettamoon approached Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett in Canberra, while he was ironically wining under an outdoor heater at an exclusive ACT bar. Quizzed on whether it was wise to attempt to heat on masse outdoor areas using propane and butane gas the honorable Minister became agitated, stood up to leave and banged his head on a scolding hot LPG burner. He hastily left the establishment muttering something which amazingly sounded like…“How can I think when my head is burning?!”
Buy an Outdoor Heater (Patio Heater):
As seen in Zombie-land -Burkes Backyard or Backyard Blitz
Buy one at CHIMINEA & AUSSIE HEATWAVE OUTDOOR FIREPLACES
Hire an outdoor heater from Cocktail-king
BBQs Galore would have to sell outdoor heaters, call them for a quote.
Recent Media:
Gosh! If you have concerns about the Bureau of Probable Statistics, you can now consult the ‘experts’:
Wasteful outdoor heaters leave the experts cold – The Age, August 11, 2009