TALLOWA PIPELINE COMPANY: READY TO SUCK SHOALHAVEN RIVER DRY

NSW and Shoalhaven Greens have jointly condemned comments from Nationals leader Andrew Stoner who plans to look at raising the wall height at Tallowa Dam, a proposal that was put in the bin during 2006.

Mr Stoner's comments are even more alarming in light of the revelation that private company Evans and Peck have made a submission to the NSW Government to pipe water from Tallowa Dam to Western NSW.

Greens NSW MP John Kaye said: “Pumping water over the Great Divide has never been a sensible idea and this particular proposal is even more flawed than most of its predecessors. In drought years towns like Goulburn and Yass would be in direct competition with Sydney for access to flows from the Shoalhaven River, creating even more conflict over the future of scarce water desperately needed for the environment.

Dr Kaye said: “The Keneally government needs to send a very clear message to the Tallowa Pipeline Company. Shoalhaven water is not for sale to the first get-rich-quick merchant who walks through the door with a scheme to send it off to the inland.”

Cl Findley said " Andrew Stoners comments are irresponsible and insensitive and show no thought for the people of Shoalhaven and our own quest for water security and environmental outcomes for the Shoalhaven River. Our population is projected to rise and Sydney Water will not hesitate to resume pumping if the circumstances present low dam levels."

Clr Findley was shocked to discover that Cobar council was taking the Evans and Peck proposal seriously and requesting that it be taken further up the governance chain.

" Any government who would support such a radical, extreme and expensive project should not be in government. Andrew Stoner needs to tell us if his statements about Tallowa were made with this pipeline project in mind."


 “The proposal would inflict yet more damage on the Shoalhaven downstream from Tallowa Dam. It would starve the river of essential flows in flood times and lead to even more sand and silt build up.

“Losing 300 GL a year would be an environmental disaster for the Shoalhaven, taking away what’s left of the flood flows that clean and rejuvenate the river.

“The Tallowa to Basin pipeline would condemn inland populations to periods of devastating water shortages. Because it supposedly only pumps out water that would otherwise spill, it would leave Yass and the other towns with no water inflows in dry years, depending only on their local storages.

“The Keneally government should consign this proposal to the waste bin, along with hundreds of other previous pitches to pump the waters inland.

“The proponents want to cream off a profit from building the pipeline without bringing anything new to the table.

“The solutions to the problems of the Murray-Darling basin will not be resolved by stealing a few hundred gigalitres from the Shoalhaven each year. Most of the water would disappear into dry river beds and would do add little to environmental flows or irrigation,” Dr Kaye said.

Coastal Hazards Development Control Plan 118- An attempt to slow down development in the Coastal Zone.

Council has drafted a plan to inform people of the dangers of living in the coastal zone or areas directly at risk from climate change induced coastal inundation.

The hazardous locations have been identified through a study that has assessed the risks and factored in sea level rise as adopted by the NSW Government.

Council conducted the first of its community information sessions at Ulladulla, which probably has the most expensive real estate at risk in the areas covered by the plan. The area covers the beach front of Mollymook and some of the surrounding headlands.

Property in this area has been exchanging hands for over $1Million since about 1998 with the most recent exchange occurring in the last 18 months. Many of the properties have been bought in the last ten years.

These transactions have occurred during a period when sea level rise and climate change has been known about and ignorance can not be an excuse when making investment decisions.

Some of the residents are bewildered at Councils approach to coastal hazards some are just downright angry that their property values have been effected.

For urban coastal dwellers in Australia you can see why- our lives feel fairly benign we feel mostly removed from climate effects, yet processes are well underway that will have a dramatic impact on our lives- not just the lives of our children and grand children. Federal and International governments should be addressing these issues aggressively now- and have left local governments to deal with climate changes.

The residents who attended the meeting conducted themselves exceptionally well under difficult circumstances. Some tried to query the entire issue of climate change science, but most accepted the evenings debate was not about climate science, but Shoalhaven City's response to directions from NSW state planning not to intensify living on the coastal strip.

It is difficult policy to make, knowing that the decision you make will impact dramatically on people's lives. These kinds of policy decisions prepare our population now for the shocks that are to come and will need rapid government response.

Climate Change will cost us in so many ways not just ecologically and the damage to the earth's systems that we rely upon.

So back to Mollymook.

 Where will Shoalhaven end up taking this policy?
Will Council stick with the draft and extinguish building rights seaward of the 2025 sea level rise line?
If not at which point will building rights be extinguished as this is the logical end to the dilemma.
Will Council defer decisions until stronger policy direction comes from the State and leave people in limbo land or provide some sort of certainty?

The residents want to know who will pay?

We will all pay to replace and repair public infrastructure that is in the front line of ocean surges. Low lying roads, public property, water, sewage and unknowns. Council is preparing a register of  public assets that are at risk.

RUBBISH EVERYWHERE: Were to with waste management.

For most people the last time they think about the rubbish that they produce is when they close the lid of the bin after depositing something.

A second thought may cross the mind when a rates notice arrives with a charge for the domestic waste levy and the NSW waste levy- mine is a little over $200 a year.

At present in Shoalhaven everything in the red lid bin or the land fill bin goes straight to the big whole at west Nowra. There is a small landfill facility at Huskission but most village rubbish is transferred to Nowra and buried.

The yellow or recycle bin is sorted manually at Nowra by a local company who separate out the paper glass plastic and bundle it for reprocessing.

Most reprocessing of recycled materials occurs overseas.

I was fortunate enough to go and visit a few waste facilities to look at the different types of processes that our rubbish goes through before its life end. Some systems are highly mechanical, others are more people intense. The main aim is to remove from land fill anything that rots and creates methane- a green house gas that is partially responsible for climate change, and to ensure that anything that can be recycled is recycled.

It all costs a huge amount of money- although when spread out across the whole community we end up with a frequent service at low cost.

This year Shoalhaven City Council needs to make a decision on Rubbish. How will it be processed, how often will it be collected, how many bins are the types of questions we need to answer and find a suitable solution for.

So what should be our main aim?

Diverting the maximum amount of material from land fill.
Implementing a Green Waste system.

Implementing a system never before used in Australia but that has excellent results from trials.

The number of rubbish trucks moving around our city.

Waste process' that involve people sorting and sifting through our mess.

Educating our population on better ways to deal with rubbish.

Costs to the ratepayers of the city over the life of the contract.

All aspects have their plus and negative sides.

As you can see it makes for a difficult process and add to that 13 people (Councillors) that all have different opinions- an extra level of difficulty is created.

Some of the other things that I will be considering during the process, will be the carbon accounting of the whole operation and how we can have a more sustainable approach in general to waste management.

I think that Shoalhaven has done a remarkable job so far with the home composting program. Which returns to the soil waste that would currently end up in land fill which will be taxed twice- once by the state just for filling the hole and next an eventual emission tax on the methane produced by rotten organic material.

I like that if I need someone to take away my large green waste, I can call council and for a moderate fee someone will collect my waste for me. Our family have never used this though as our challenge is to put back on our garden all the pruning and clippings we produce.

I also hope that Council can raise the communities awareness to the land fill bin so that we can be more thoughtful about our disposal.

After all no one wants a tip in his or her backyard.

Logging at South Brooman State Forest.

South Brooman Forest Monday 1 February 2010
Carbon Sinks Threatened Species Bad Public Policy.

I got a call from South East Forest Rescue to come and have a look at what was happening in forests in my own back yard at Brooman. When I turned up, I was faced with the typically devastating scene that forestry practices produce. This compartment didn’t have the usual roadside buffers as the access routes were not used and some were blocked so the logging operation came right up to the road and reports allege that creek buffers had been ignored and logged as close as 5 meter's.

It used to be a Spotted Gum forest with rainforest gullies evident by the ferns that were destroyed under the fallen canopy.

It used to be a feeding ground for threatened and endangered bats, who would come in each evening to feed on blossom.

 Bats fly long distances to reliable feed sites and if these are removed, the bats do not have the energy to return to the roost. The colony at South Brooman is believed to be coming from Yatte Yattah on the northern side of Milton. Grey and Red headed flying foxes have been recorded at Yatte Yattah.

It has been alleged that NSW Forestry were not interested in improving a buffer zone to allow the bats their usual feeding place, and that someone within the logging crew fired shots so that the bats would not land and fee allowing logging to continue.

When I questioned the NSW Forestry spokesperson about the logs going to wood chip, I was told I was wrong and that they would all be prime saw logs. It is hard to swallow this explanation when there is much evidence to prove that mill quality logs are chipped and exported to Japan for paper and cardboard making.

Our forests need protecting- they may not conjure up the grand images like those of the Stix, Florentine or any other of the iconic Tasmanian forests, but they are the lungs of the coast- storing carbon, purifying the air, providing habitat for a diverse biota.

NSW has enough plantation pine to satisfy the need for construction timber and wood chip there is no need for the ongoing commercialisation of native forests it’s an industry that according to the auditor generals department lost $14million in 2007/2008.

Like many NSW government departments Forests NSW operates in a blanket of secrecy that requires skilled use of freedom of information to uncover detail. With contract detail hidden away under the 'commercial in confidence' code. This is all designed to stop or hinder public scrutiny into the affairs of Forestry.

NSW Forests are a public asset; we need to be able to scrutinise the management actions and the logging practices. Forests need to be managed as carbon sinks which will generate a different income stream in a carbon constrained world. The NSW and Federal governments need to put their heads together and offer a forestry retraining / buy out package, just like the dairy and fishing industries and retrain forest workers to be custodians rather than loggers. With a $14 million dollar loss, surely it makes sense to stop wood chipping our precious forest assets.

Holidays Over its Back to Work.

I have had a fantastic time during January.

I managed to complete a summer session at University- the John Hatton inspired Politics, Community and the Common Good.

WoW- what a journey with the most amazing lectures I have ever attended. Geoffrey Robertson (QC), John Falzon ( St Vincent de Paul), John Mant, Dick Smith and retired Justice Michael Kirby were the headliners.

Some long serving community activists shared their stories, and a great turn out of non enrolled community particpants rounded the experience with their passion and history.

I intend to share some of the experience through the blog in the coming weeks.

Managed to go camping with the family in a quiet National Park out of mobile range for almost a week.

Celebrated my childrens birthdays.

Installed an experimental wind generator at home- its 1KW and I will share more on that later also.

Council did not return untill January 18th when the commitee meetings recommenced and the first meeting of the calendar year just last Wednesday (27 Jan). Plenty more to report on that front also.

I won't pack away the holiday feeling just yet though- may as well let it linger as long as it can!