containers

Is Portsea preparing for invasion? Yes, by sea. Much of the beach has disappeared and the overhang has been sandbagged to prevent businesses from following it. Where did that $38m given to Parks Victoria go? This article also looks at Ted Baillieu's plans to continue development plans (cost $9.4b?) where Brumby left off, plus some comments from the Ex-Ports Minister, Tim Pallas.

The Department of Sustainability (DSE) and the Office of Environmental Monitor (OEM) probably had hoped their problem of disappearing iconic Portsea beach might have gone away. Well their problem hasn’t gone, but the beach has!

Disappearing beach

Sadly for them and thousands of holiday makers who once loved Portsea, the $millions of taxpayers’ funds thrown at months of beach works at Portsea have done nothing to solve the problem of the disappearing beach. In fact the supposed solutions - the sandbag wall and huge rockwall are already failing, with the sandbags nearest the pier breaking apart and slumping into the water. The DSE and OEM have been left to defend the channel deepening project long after the disappearance of its champion Mr. Brumby -who is a distant memory – leaving some unwanted legacies such as at Portsea with its sad and near useless beach and a massive sign erected by the Brumby regime spruiking how their plan to build a massive sand bag wall and dump some rocks near the pier would restore the beach.

Portsea Beach 2011, view from pier to beach looking south east. Once there was sand and trees. Fossickers with metal detectors were the only Portsea beach goers on this 2011 Summers day.

Damage obvious, say local papers

Local papers report that the damage is obvious.

Portsea businesses, including the Portsea Hotel owned juice bar claim that their takings are down 50% since the Entrance was deepened and the beach started to disappear. See: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s939575.htm

Divers report marked increase in tides, currents and swells

Dive businesses too continue to report that tides and current speed have increased markedly whilst ocean swell now regularly pounds the beach and pier – making boat operations extremely difficult. (We recently were swamped trying to land a dingy on Portsea beach on an otherwise calm day but with a massive swell – it was like riding the rapids. Ed)

Ted Baillieu taking over where Brumby left off

It seems electing Mr. Baillieu in the hope of a fresh approach on environmental matters might be a dismal failure. He’s been silent on the damage to Portsea – in spite of his connections to the area, and within weeks of being elected, it’s more of the same for Port expansion plans with the new Mr. B announcing that he would fast track the development of the Port of Hastings within the next 10 years … …..That’s even faster than Mr. Brumby was intending! Sadly it seems our elected representatives are merging into a coalescence of business as usual dinosaurs when what we really need is some serious planning for a very different future.

Ex Ports Minister, Tim Pallas, now in opposition, changes tune, warns of $9.4 billion costs for Hastings Port development

We were amazed this week to hear Tim Pallas (previously the Minister for Ports and now Opposition spokesperson for Ports) sounding the alarm on how costly it might be to develop the Port of Hastings. See: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cost-of-hastings-container-port-put-at-94bn-20110227-1ba1l.html

Mr. Pallas warns us it would cost $9.4 billion to develop Hastings Port, suggesting that it may not be money well spent……..Mind you he was singing from a different song book when as Minister for Ports he visited Hastings in 2009 to launch his Port Strategy – we were there - to hear his “vision” for a “green” port ….whatever that is. See: http://archive.premier.vic.gov.au/newsroom/7997.html and although he didn’t actually name a $ amount for his vision back then, it involved about the same amount of road, rail and portside works as he is now warning would be a $9.4 billion folly.

Projected huge container loads

The plan for Hastings Port[1] involves it handling almost 4 million containers some time in the not so distant future….that’s TWICE the current throughput of the Port of Melbourne. At the same time it is envisaged that the Port of Melbourne would be handling up to 8 million containers by 2030….QUADRUPLING it’s current throughput. Yes- that’s almost 12 million containers per year through Victoria compared with our present approx. 2 million per year. Hastings would look, feel, sound and smell like Port Melbourne.

And don't forget coal...

Note also new proposals for brown coal being mined in future from around Mirboo North.[2] Presumably that would be shipped out through Westernport!

Oil depletion will dramatise the insanity of planned expansion of Hastings Port

Where would we put all that stuff and how could we possibly afford it? Perhaps our only saviour might be skyrocketing production, shipping and trucking costs in future as oil runs out, demanding a re-think on what’s essential and what past follies can be done away with. We’ve been feeding the machine at the expense of our natural systems for way too long just to keep the creaking old system on the rails for longer than it should have been.

Auditor General's report on failure to protect marine environments: Where did the $38m go?

Anyway – a voice of reason was heard in the Victorian Auditor General’s Report "Environmental Management of Marine Protected Areas" tabled yesterday (March 2nd) in Parliament. The audit reveals just how ineffectively marine protected areas have been managed to protect biodiversity. It assessed the roles of Parks Victoria and the Departments of Sustainability and Environment and Primary Industries, finding that Parks Victoria could not show that marine biodiversity is being protected. Only 10% of the $38 million allocated to protection of marine biodiversity could be shown to have been appropriately discharged.

Just what was the rest of the money spent on then? Certainly not in protecting Port Phillip Bay from the damage we see to the Portsea coastline or protecting it from the massive unregulated toxic dump we now have in the middle of the Bay compliments of the Port of Melbourne!

The Auditor’s report can be downloaded from: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports__publications/reports_by_year/2010-11/20110302_marine_parks.aspx

The report also warns that Government is failing to protect coastal waters from invasive pests and diseases, and recommends the development of a marine pest biosecurity plan. Now that’s an issue which shipping and ports have a LOT to answer for.

400 invasive pests in Port Phillip and growing

Port Phillip Bay with its thousands of ship visits per year currently has over 400 invasive pest species and growing, whilst Westernport Bay with its approx 200 ship visits per year has only a very small number of invasive pests – around 10 when we last checked. Ships ballast water and the hulls of ships are the main vectors for invasive marine species, but the shipping industry isn’t very interested in spending the money to address the issue. So, Mr. Baillieu’s port expansion plans would likely mean an explosion in marine pests in Westernport.

A very interesting and alarming report on ballast water is at ABC Science Show: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s1232619.htm and how trade facilitates the movement and impacts of invasive species at in this 2003 Earthbeat transcript at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/stories/s939575.htm

"A staggering 120 million tons of foreign ballast water is dumped into Australian ports each year - that's a quarter of the volume of water in Sydney's famous harbour. Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff believes it's crucial that something be done, because the discharged ballast water can - and does - transport bacteria from one part of the world to another.

"[Professor Gustaaf Hallegraeff] [...] tracked the spread of nasty micro organisms around the world. Dinoflagellates, which poison shellfish, weeds, even cholera, would you believe, carried in the ballast water of shipping. The story and its implications are really incredible."
[...]
"Gustaaf Hallegraeff: There would not be a ballast water problem if for example a Japanese ship that comes now to Hobart to pick up woodchips, if that ship would for example deliver Japanese cars. Then it comes to Hobart, it picks up woodchips, changes the cargo and it takes the woodchips back. If a ship always carries cargo there is no problems, but somehow dedicated ships became designed that only pick a particular types of cargo and therefore they travel in one direction without a cargo, and that is where they need to fill up the whole tanks - sometimes up to 100,000 tonnes of seawater."

NOTES

[1] Sources: PoMC’s Port Development Plan 2006-2035 and PoH Land Use and Transport Strategy 2009
[2] Royce Millar, "Baillieu coal export push," 3 Mar 2011, http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-coal-export-push-20110302-1bexa.html

Picture: area to be developed for heavy industry

Article written by RICHARD LAVERACK

Growth at any cost is malignant growth

The State Government finally released its support for the Port of Hastings Land Use and Transport Strategy this month, and the full picture revealed of a deceptive, deceitful and underhand growth machine completely self immunized from the responsibility of planetary considerations.

Growth is the paradigm, growth at any cost. Trash those mosquito filled mud flats, no-one likes them anyway, least of all Lindsey Fox and his fleet of double B’s waiting to cart 300,000 vehicles from Hastings to the car fixated population that’s eager to buy the latest air bagged GPS status symbol available.

Sustainable Shire going up in smoke and mirrors

That this could happen in the Sustainable Shire is remarkable only if you consider the lengths Mornpen will prostitute itself to stress the credentials of freeways and UN sustainable growth. Having lied through the Shires back teeth to stress how much the residents of Mornpen supported the Frankston Bypass, the truth is now apparent. The porky’s told in Frankston about how the Bypass would REDUCE traffic congestion emissions was also a complete furphy.

The Bypass was the last enabling link to start the Port redevelopment, the State has had its “Brimbank” regional offices in Mornington and Frankston fiddling whilst the planet is burning.

Greenwash pushing unnecessary and dangerous consumerism

The Buyersfear waits in the wings with an unelected chair, and 3 members lauding the “sustainability” of the proposal, with Greenies like this, who needs climate skeptics.

The completion of the Hastings development will see a massive surge in consumerism in a State that has one of the biggest Ecological Footprints in the world. Each one of us is now responsible for over 20 tonnes p.a. of carbon being emitted just for our electricity consumption.

2 million containers came into Melbourne in 2007/8, before the recession we never had that is. The State “estimate” is that by 2035 the number of containers will have increased from 2 to 10 million. How much carbon will each of us be responsible for when 5 times more “stuff” is being imported? If this figure is ever reached it will defy any agreement in Copenhagen for a sustainable future.

Who benefits from these crazy white elephant schemes?

Legal action now surrounds Eastlink, because the vehicle figures for the road are 100,000 short PER DAY. Who are these “bean counters” who keep putting this unsustainable carrot in front of gullible elected representatives, and an even more gullible society who just can’t do without new “stuff”..

Climate catastrophe is driving State and Local Government policy, it’s business as usual with a complete refusal to utter the blasphemous words, “make do with less”.

Everything is now determined through growth, everything that is, except a sustainable future. How many pennies must drop before WE realise that it is OUR LIFESTYLE that is the cause of environmental destruction, OUR DEMAND for growth that is the reason for species extinction, OUR EMISSIONS generation that is the reason for climate catastrophe and OUR GRANDCHILDREN who will be left to pick up the pieces.

Editorial comment: A lot of us don't want growth, but the growth merchants run the mainstream media and don't give any alternative politicians publicity.

There are three marine national parks in this area to be developed and it is listed as a Ramsar Wetlands.

From the Port of Hasting's Corporation own website:
"Western Port Environment
Western Port - an area of worldwide environmental value

Western Port is an area that offers significant environmental values that are recognised worldwide. The bay is a listed Ramsar site, part of a Biosphere Reserve, containing three Marine National Parks and five Special Management Areas.

Western Port covers an area of 680sq kms and includes two islands, French Island and Phillip Island, which lie at the centre and entrance of the bay respectively. Approximately 40% of Western Port total area is exposed as mud flats at low tide.

The net water flow in Western Port is primarily in a clockwise direction around French Island. The majority of water exchange with Bass Strait is through the western entrance. Water exchange through the eastern entrance is significantly less, mainly due to the great width of the western entrance.

Freshwater inflow comes via 17 waterways which drain the catchment. The Bunyip, Bass and Lang Lang rivers are the major inflow points which together contribute approximately 75% of the freshwater inflow.

The tidal range (up to three metres) within the bay provides a wide variety of marine habitats ranging from deep channels to very extensive sea grass flats, fringing mangroves and saltmarsh and wide tidal mudflats. This variety of marine habitats provides ideal homes for many different species of animals, birds, sponges and corals."