May 29
Please follow this link to the ABC Gippsland website and have a look at the photos and listen to the interview.
”
ABC Gippsland - Camping out for a cause
-
Your Water, Your Say
-
Media Releases ➽
-
Dumby Award
-
✎ Notice Board / Events
-
Looking for ...
- Actions accomplished
- Addresses for your emails
- Bass Coast Shire Council
- Community Assembly
- Correspondence
- EPBC
- Fact Sheets
- Federal Government EIS referral
- Inquiry into Reform of the Metropolitan Retail Water Se
- Is there scientific media coverage
- Legal Challenge
- Letters (worth their postage)
- Links - Find Out More
- Must read articles and reports
- National Water Commission
- News and News Articles
- Petition
- Reports & Studies
- See what others are doing
- TAKING A STAND - opinions made public/press releases
- The indecent Desal Proposal
- Watch, Listen and Learn!
- What YOU can do
- Why NOT Desalination?
- Write your Emails
-
Archives
-
Archive for May, 2008
May 28
Download the 27May YWYS Media Release - Blockade as a pdf
27th May 2008
Community blockades desalination site
Your Water Your Say (YWYS) joined members of the local community today – Tuesday – to successfully blockade the entry of the horizontal drilling machine to the site of the desalination plant. The six trucks were delayed for 6 hours when a deeply concerned community decided they had no other option but to act.
Neither the Federal nor State Governments are listening to serious concerns of the citizens or to the Bass Coast Shire Council that they are continuing to ignore. Both Governments are also now pursuing court costs from YWYS which it knows very well doesn’t have any funds to pay them.
The Bass Coast community is outraged by the total lack of decency with which they are being treated by the Government and disappointed that the only option available to have our concerns heard are actions of this nature.
Andrea Bolch, President of YWYS, says “this community has been banging on doors for nearly 12 months now and the government has responded to our calls for explanations with nothing but rhetoric and we are tired of being ignored. What option does a community have but to stand up for itself when a government decides it won’t listen and it’s expendable?â€
Mums, dads, children, teachers, students, farmers, business operators and senior citizens descended on the site when word spread that the horizontal drilling machine was heading to the site.
YWYS also believes the contractors are contravening the Environment Management Plan with an excavator forced to turn around yesterday at the gate to go away and be washed down. Despite requests to provide on-site monitoring to ensure contractors are adhering to the plan, no independent monitoring is in place.
Ms Bolch says “it’s hard to believe that we have been driven to this point when all we have been asking for are explanations as to why this last resort solution has been chosen and what the real cost is to water users.â€
Contacts:
Andrea Bolch
President
PH: 0400 065 253
John Wright
Vice-President
PH: 5678 7083
PH: 0428 787 083
Chris Heislers
Steering Committee
PH: 0419 556 381
May 26
Greg Hunt - Labor’s ruthless attempt to crush community resistance to the desalination plant
No Comments »click here to download Greg Hunt’s Media Release
26 May 2008
LABOR’S RUTHLESS ATTEMPT TO CRUSH COMMUNITY RESISTANCE TO THE DESALINATION PLANT
Flinders’ MP Greg Hunt has condemned the State and Federal Governments for their determination to pursue Your Water Your Say for costs after an unsuccessful legal challenge to the desalination plant.
Mr Hunt said the application for costs to be awarded against the community group betrayed an unwarranted level of vindictiveness on the part of the State and Federal Labor Governments.
“The Your Water Your Say group is made up of community members whose only crime is to care deeply about the environment and to want to protect the stunning Kilcunda coastline,†Mr Hunt said.
“For the two Labor Governments to pursue these people for costs, with the full knowledge that this would inevitably bankrupt the group, reveals a ruthless determination to silence dissent.
“Bankrupting Your Water Your Say will effectively remove the community’s ability to have a say on this issue and give the State Government a free rein to do as it pleases, regardless of what local residents want. How will this serve the interests of democracy?
“Perhaps Mr Brumby’s desire to silence the community stems from his inability to justify his decision to build a desalination plant.
“He has never publicly stated why he chose the most expensive and environmentally-destructive method of augmenting Melbourne’s water supply instead of cleaning up Gunnamatta and recycling our waste water for industry and agriculture.
“As for Mr Garrett, this move is merely the latest in a string of ill-considered decisions in which the environment will be the ultimate loser.â€
Media contact: Tina McGuffie on 03 5979 3188 or 0417 361 732
May 25
click here to download 25May YWYS Media Release- Govt pursues costs
25th May 2008
State & Federal Governments pursue community for costs
Your Water Your Say AG (YWYS) is facing bankruptcy and exclusion from the EES process due to the State and Federal Government’s decision to pursue costs by lodging cost applications in the Federal Court last Friday 23rd May.
YWYS challenged the Federal Government in Federal Court arguing that the Federal Minister for the Environment (Peter Garrett) failed to give appropriate consideration to greenhouse gas emissions and the effect of further global warming on wetlands of international importance or listed threatened species and communities.
The primary grounds for the challenge were that the Federal Minister for the Environment accepted the Brumby government’s decision to carve the pilot plant out from the major works, hence enabling the beginning of works before any inquiry into the environmental effects.
YWYS will be lodging a challenge to fight the application by the deadline of Friday 30th May.
Andrea Bolch, President of YWYS, says “the pursuit of costs from community groups that challenge government decisions strikes at the heart of democratic principles and our right to be heard. The government has decided that they don’t want pesky community groups questioning or challenging their decisions so they will spend enormous amounts of taxpayer funds to fight them in court and then ensure they are put out of business.â€
How can any community have access to the same resources that Governments have? The process is unequal and individuals or communities can never win with the miniscule resources available by comparison.
Ms Bolch says “if the Governments are successful in securing costs, YWYS will effectively face bankruptcy and the voice of the community will be silenced. This is the consequence for communities which dare to question Government decision making. The Government has never justified nor explained why it had chosen the most expensive and environmentally damaging solution to solve Melbourne’s water problems. By taking this action they will try to ensure they never have to explain it.â€
Contacts:
Andrea Bolch
President
PH: 0400 065 253
John Wright
Vice-President
PH: 0428 787 083
Chris Heislers
Steering Committee
PH: 5678 7577
PH: 0419 556 381
click here to download 25May YWYS Media Release- Govt pursues costs
May 18
Please download the Federal Court Decision as a pdf
Your Water Your Say Inc v Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts [2008] FCA 670
May 17
Jo Chandler
May 17, 2008
There are more than 13,000 desal plants around the world, and one is planned for Victoria. But among the experts, the technology is far from universally embraced as the pragmatist’s panacea.
…The question of whether desalination stacks up as a solution to water shortage was recently considered by the US National Research Council, which advises Congress on science. It found that while desalination could help meet future water needs, its cost and uncertainties about its environmental impacts were a significant barrier to its wider use, and required more research.
Concerns cited in the report include threats to fish and other aquatic animals from water intakes, high energy use in the salt-removal process, and disposal of the salty sludge left over. It also urged more work on the human effects of boron, commonly showing up in higher than recommended levels in desalinated water. Highlighting the connectedness of greenhouse emissions, climate change and reduced water supply, it urged that plants be fuelled with renewable energy to mitigate against the solution feeding the problem. …
…Dr Tim Fletcher, director of the Institute for Sustainable Water Resources at Monash University — also an advocate of stormwater capture as a “win-win” solution — says that given reduced rainfall and increasing population, the Government is entirely right to be looking for new water.
“But desalination is the most energy intensive way you can imagine to produce water. You can see why governments are attracted to it — it has a certainty, and communities like certainty, it is a normal human trait. And in a sense there is a simplicity to it — one big system, in one place.” But there is an imperative now to look beyond such centralised delivery of water and energy.
“You might make an argument for building a very small desalination plant that can operate like a back-up generator in a hospital — to get us out of trouble in an emergency,” says Fletcher. “But to build one as a primary new supply is not showing the leadership on climate change that we need to show, and in a sense it is taking the path of least resistance.”
Please continue in The Age - Is desalination the solution?
In the news ...
Community Consultation & Information
Environmental Effects Study
Watch our youtube videos, Listen to the radio links and get interested!
- youtube - Desal Protest - My Tribute To Those That Care Higher Quality
- Transcript of Friday’s (20 June 08) ABC Stateline Victoria - Kathy Bowlen interviews Councilor Garteh Barlow
- ABC Gippsland - Camping out for a cause
- ABC - 7:30 Report - Tim Flannery reflects on 2007
- Bob Brown -youtube video from Kilcunda
Featured
Latest Posts
- 1st December 08 - final settlement for court costs
- Desalination Project Public Inquiry - Your Water Your Say - Submission
- The Age - 25 September 08 - Water policy is based on flawed figures
- Water Smart ‘Water Supply - Demand Strategy for Melbourne (Water Substitution) April 2006 - on Clean Ocean website
- 3rd September - YOUR WATER “NO†SAY
- The Age - 30 Aug 08 - Water plant to guzzle energy
Photos
