Murray-Darling basin

Will Anna Bligh scrap the Felton coal-to-liquids project?

Friends of Felton media release, 24 August 2008

Friends of Felton welcome the announcement that the Bligh Government has scrapped the proposed $14b shale oil mining project in the Whitsundays.

We also welcome the declaration that other big developments will be stopped if they threaten Queensland’s pristine environment, and that legislation will be passed to prohibit new shale oil mines anywhere in Queensland.

We call on the Premier to confirm that this ban will include Ambre Energy’s proposed development at Felton, 30 km SW of Toowoomba, on the Darling Downs. This proposal includes a 12 million tonne/year open-cut coal mine, and a petrochemical plant to convert the coal into liquid fuel.

This project would devastate one of this country’s most beautiful & fertile valleys, contaminate underground aquifers, pollute the Murray Darling river system, destroy nationally significant populations of rare & endangered species, and produce huge quantities of Greenhouse gases.

Ms Bligh was quoted as saying "Our environment must come first".

Will the Felton environment come first too?

Fair Go for Felton

Friends of Felton media release, 24 August 2008

The Premier recently announced a ban on new shale oil developments in Queensland for environmental reasons. In state parliament last week, the Minister for Mines & Energy stated that no new entitlements would be granted until a 2 year review had been carried out.

Friends of Felton were informed by the Premier's dept on 27th August that the Felton project proposed by Ambre Energy was not affected by the ban.

Friends of Felton call for the Felton project to be included in the shale oil ban on the following grounds -

1. The coal-to-liquids process at Felton is very similar to the process planned for the Whitsundays.
2. Shale has been identified in the resource at Felton ( Ambre Energy IAS 15 Feb 2008, pp 10-11).
3. The Whitsundays project threatened the Barrier Reef, the Felton project threatens the Murray Darling Basin.
4. Both projects would emit huge amounts of CO2 - at Felton, Ambre Energy themselves say 3t CO2 per 1t fuel.
5. The technology involved in both projects is equally unproven.

The Premier was quoted as saying "The environment must come first". By including Felton in the shale oil ban, she will demonstrate her concern for the natural environment as well as the political environment.

See also: www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com, Qld farmers want new rules for mining in Sunshine Coast Daily of 2 Sep 08, Farmers take on coal project in GLW of 7 Sep 08, comment added on 17 Nov 2011 and reposted here.

The more I observed the conflicts between Howard and Bracks over water, the more I thought they were about votes and not water. I honestly cannot see why anyone who cared about safeguarding water for Australia would give more water to irrigators and take it from dryland farmers. This is what happened in the Victorian Government's push for piping in the Wimmera Mallee, replacing seasonal gravity-fed channels one hundred years old with expensive, cumbersome, motor-pumped pvc closed pipes, forcing farmers to bulldoze their dams and to lay expensive infrastructure for the privilege of receiving very expensive water which has been arguably taken from them to buy votes from irrigators who were also encouraged to farm even more intensively - feedlot pig farms, dairy farms and vinyards. Let's face it; the irrigated parts of the MDB are the most densely populated areas of inland rural Australia and water for irrigators is a handle on a substantial voting population. In contrast the dryland farmers, albeit far more sustainable even though broad acre, are too thin on the ground to matter to Bracks or Howard. So, is this about water? Yes, but only about branding water with a party name and the face of particular politicians. I thought that Howard was masterfully crafty in his sudden withdrawal from the Snowy Hydro privatisation plan, leaving Bracks, so to speak, high, dry and irrigation vote-less. It was eerily like watching the road-runner outrace the coyote, yet again - with Bracks the coyote and Howard the road-runner. I guess that is part of the reason that Bracks would be furious this time. Apparently the VFF suddenly decided to go National. The farmers followed. And then ...did Bracks resign or was he persuaded to resign? And what about Thwaites? I'm only sorry that I missed the detail. I have looked in vain for articles which would analyse what really happened. I certainly cannot credit Bracks or Thwaites with any sincere desire to actually guarantee hydration to Victoria. I have watched them side with big money (Pratt's piping; desalination; overpopulation, taking water from the Golburn to sprinking on the new suburbs their mates the property developers are building in every big country town) for too long. It is truly sickening to listen to both Federal and State politicians carrying on about precious water for future generations etc with their hands over the places where their hearts would be if they had hearts, when anyone can see that they are leading a stampede of salivating nabobs who are dying for full commodification to take place so that they can buy up the water and wait for the inflation and scarcity which is already arising with climate change, continuing population growth, and more intensification of agriculture. With a merchant banker in charge of water - Turnbull - we just know they are going to get what they want and the rest of us are all in really big trouble. Trading water separate from land is a terrible idea, but I am horribly sure that Turnbull will come up with much worse. He only seems to deal in really bad ideas - like schemes to assist banks to get more land from the same amount of mortgages. I wish we could all wake up and find that this was all a bad dream and that we 21st century Australians really are all too evolved to allow Australia to go the same way as treeless waterless Greece, Rome, Egypt, China ... Neutrino

We need to be sure that a transfer of control over the Murray-Darling water is constitutional, Independent MP Tony Windsor said today. The Commonwealth may well need a referendum before it takes control of the Murray-Darling. He says the details of the federal government’s plan to take over the Murray-Darling Basin must be made public and the basin’s communities and irrigators must be consulted. Mr Windsor issued a joint statement with another key Independent, Peter Andren. “All the negotiation around the Howard Government’s $10 billion water plan has involved federal and state leaders, ministers and bureaucrats with no sign that the communities and irrigators who rely on the Murray-Darling will get a say,” Mr Windsor said. “My independent colleague, Peter Andren and I are calling on the federal and state governments to make the draft legislation and explanatory documentation available to the public with a view to launching an extensive community consultation process. “If the Commonwealth government is going to take over control of the Murray-Darling, with the agreement of the States, once Victoria gets on board, there are questions that need to be answered. "Section 100 of the constitution states: The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation. “So ‘the residents’ of a State have the same rights as their state governments when it comes to the regulation of water,” Mr Windsor said. Mr Andren believes that there is also questions of:

• How much authority is actually to be handed over by the states.
• How duplication of roles may occur and therefore duplication of costs to the taxpayer.

Mr Andren asks, “What are the Commonwealth’s plans for the allocation of water to the towns, irrigators, and to environmental flows? "How can anyone accept the federal government’s proposal without this information? He concluded, “This takeover requires extensive consultation for all the so-called stake holders in the Murray-Darling basin before anything is decided and the federal government must make the details of its plan publicly available. “The people of the basin must be confident that the Commonwealth is not just creating another layer of bureaucracy and that there will be sufficient checks and balances in place against the misuse of our precious water resources,” Mr Andren said. SOURCE: Breaking national news from Rural Press weekly agricultural papers, 24 July 2007 updated daily on FarmOnline.