Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Rainwater Tanks That Can’t Be Recycled: A Note from Don Matthews

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IN Australian cities rainwater tanks are being promoted as environmentally friendly with generous government subsidies available for their purchase and installation.  But according to Don Matthew, a gardener who is passionate about the environment, they are a looming pollution problem:

“Ask anyone in the business of manufacturing or selling poly tanks and they will tell you without fail they can be recycled.  The industry’s ARMA (Association of Rotatational Moulders Australasia) website www.watertanks.org.au says ” Can poly tanks be recycled?  Yes, they can be completely recycled”.  Most Australians would accept this as being correct and so feel environmentally comfortable about purchasing a poly tank.  Unfortunately, this appears to be far from the truth.  I believe the industry have no idea how UV-degraded (spent) tanks are going to be recycled.    

Over the past months I have been directing questions to various sections of the industry to find out what they would tell an environmentally concerned member of the public about recycling spent poly tanks.  The results have been interesting and have all been documented on the weblog http://thegreataustralianpolytankdebate.blogspot.com .  I then followed this up with further questions and asked for evidence to back up their claims.  The result: one big deafening silence.  Their recycling claims appear to be simply marketing tools to take advantage of the current water crisis and make us all feel environmentally comfortable with poly tanks.

For the moment I am just asking questions and recording results on the weblog.  Next year I would like to see a national awareness campaign launched to raise this issue with the Australian public. It needs to be brought out into the open for discussion and debate. The industry is just burying their head in the sand and while no-one asks questions they will continue to sell their tanks and perpetrate what I believe is misleading information about recycling.  In the not-too-distant-future millions of spent tanks will be lying around.  If the recycling issue is not resolved I can see us heading for a major environmental pollution problem.”

Important Article by Friend and Forester Mark Poynter

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Friends,

 

An important article has been published today at Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au by Mark Poynter.

 

  Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications (published in 2007).

 

Mark’s article looks at two recent publications by the Fenner School of the Australian National University.  The first by the WildCountry Hub director Professor Brendan Mackey and colleagues that colour codes carbon and speculates that there is ten times more carbon potential in forests than a world wide estimate made almost 20 years ago.

 

The second report critiqued is from Judith Ajani (formerly Clark) that extensively quotes the Mackey report to argue that native forests should be used as carbon stores, and existing plantations will provide all our timber needs.

 

Both reports appear strongly influenced by the Wilderness Society, its political ally the Greens and an organization known as the “Greens Institute”.

 

So it’s worth a read and even a comment.

 

Comment can be made at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8094 

 

Cheers

Alan 

 

The photograph, taken by Jennifer Marohasy, shows Mark preparing for his recent presentation to the Australian Environment Foundation.

Saving the Great Barrier Reef Again: A Note from Ian Morgan

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You know there’s an election around the corner in Queensland when politicians get emotional and angry about the Great Barrier Reef. The Labor Government has been in power in Queensland for the past 10 years and the previous Premier, Peter Beattie, told us if it hadn’t been for his policies we wouldn’t have a reef. But on Premier Bligh’s watch things must have slipped as she is intent on saving it all over again.

There’s nothing wrong with expecting farmers to use ‘best practice’ in the management of their county, to minimise erosion and nutrient loss, that’s simply good farming and you’d be hard pressed to find a farmer who didn’t agree with that. However to promote the notion that there are significant numbers of farmers who aren’t concerned about the environment and are doing the wrong thing is handling the truth recklessly, even if it wasn’t a fact that they can’t afford to waste fertiliser, chemicals or soil.

According to Townsville’s Dr Walter Starck (a coral reef specialist with more than 40 years of self funded Great Barrier Reef research behind him) there is no evidence the reef is in danger of anything. He told the North Queensland Register that in the 1990s the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority commissioned the “Williams Report” that reviewed all the research on water quality and it concluded the reef was in ‘pristine condition’ and since then farming practices have improved. “The Great Barrier Reef is under water, remote and mostly inaccessible, so politicians can claim anything they like, but they’ve never been able to produce any evidence of agriculture damaging the reef, it’s all theoretical,” he said. The precautionary theory reigns – ‘there may not be a problem at the moment but if we don’t do something the reef will die,’ its called ‘political cheap shots’ the greatest publicity for the least cost.

Dr Starck points out the nutrient and sediment levels in water coming out of rainforests contain much higher levels of soil and nitrates than from farming land, so farmers should be being paid for their water purification activities.

That was shown last year when water from the Proserpine Dam used to irrigate sugarcane in the Kelsey Creek area contained more nutrients than the water leaving the cane blocks. The cane and its trash blanket were acting as a filter.

Dr Starck said the time of the year the readings are taken can markedly skew the figures. For instance, water sampled from streams at the end of the dry season, when they are not flowing, can contain quite high nutrient levels, however once the wet season breaks the dilution rate is so great that at the river mouth they are barely detectable.

One of the reasons the scare campaign about the reef needing to be saved is able to be promulgated is because of the technological advances in detecting things like nitrates or herbicides. Traces down to parts per billion can now be found but to kill a weed with diuron for instance, you need to spray 1.8kg of active ingredient over each hectare. By the time any of it got into a creek it would be at such a low concentration it wouldn’t be able to kill a fern, let alone by the time it got into the ocean.

On October 8, Premier Anna Bligh released the 2007 Water Quality Report for the Great Barrier Reef. She pointed out the Reef area covers 348,000 square kilometres (34.8 million hectares) and said: “Over the last 150 years the catchments of the Great Barrier Reef have been extensively developed for agriculture, grazing, tourism, mining and urban settlement, which has led to a significant increase in the quantity of sediments, nutrients and pesticides being pumped into the Reef.”  Maybe a better choice of words would have been – finding their way into the GBR lagoon, rather than ‘pumped into the reef.” But her speech writers obviously wanted her to get the greatest bang for her buck and considered “pumped” would shock people into supporting her with votes so she could be there to SAVE the REEF.

Premier Bligh said the 2007 Water Quality Report for the Great Barrier Reef clearly showed the situation was still not good enough and river monitoring in priority catchments show an estimated:
* 6.6 million tonnes of sediment discharged in the reef lagoon – four times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels;
* 16,600 tonnes of nitrogen – five times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels; and
* 4180 tonnes of phosphorous – four times higher than estimated pre-European settlement levels.

We’ll assume those figures apply to the amount reaching the ocean each year and provided they are not exaggerated, they are alarming – until you work out what that means on a per hectare basis:
* 6.6 million tonnes of sediment over 34.8 million hectares equals 19kg of soil/ha – you could carry more than that with a bucket in each hand.
* 16,600 tonnes of nitrogen is 460 grams/N/hectare; and
* 4180 tonnes of phosphate is 120 grams/P/ha or 19 handfuls of 12pc phosphate fertiliser over each 10,000 square metres of water surface area – imagine how diluted that would be within the water column.

According to Professor Starck if it wasn’t for the sediment and nutrients being washed into the reef lagoon each wet season, the sea grass and marine plants would be a lot less healthy than they are.

Obviously the Premier has either been duped by the Green movement, is scrambling for their preferences or she didn’t bother to do her sums, as she immediately discussed the matter with the Prime Minister and met with Environment Minister Peter Garrett and said: “We have agreed to update the Plan and give it more grunt.”

That resulted in last weeks joint Commonwealth/State Reef Water Quality Summit at Parliament House where she brought together “the best minds from environmental and scientific fields to study the latest data and discuss what urgent action we need to take to prevent the demise of the Reef, which will help determine funding priorities and action areas for our Government.”

Unusually for a Labor Government, primary producer organisations were invited to the talk fest but they came away disappointed.

Canegrowers reaction being: “Today’s reef summit bought to the fore a State Government which was out of step with the Federal Government, industry, research agencies and stakeholder groups involved in managing the health of the iconic Great Barrier Reef. The State Government has promised another high level committee and the imposition of a regulatory framework, but did not make any commitment to resources,” said CEO Ian Ballantyne. “The farming community has worn the Government’s wrath for the failure of the 10 year Reef Plan – a plan that did not include industry from its inception and one that provided good intentions but no resources or implementation.

The Queensland Farmers Federation: “Premier Anna Bligh’s plan to impose new laws on farmers in the State’s Reef catchments threatens to undermine the Federal Government’s $200 million Reef Rescue Plan to accelerate uptake of best farming practice and will likely result in worse water quality outcomes on the Reef,” said chief executive John Cherry. “The Premier’s plan to outlaw so-called ‘bad’ practice would create an environment of acrimony and uncertainty which will make it very difficult to get farmers to engage with the voluntary best practice programs set to be ramped up with Reef Rescue Plan. 

Growcom was in two minds: the organisation welcomed the “funding to tackle Reef issues” particularly the Federal Government announcement of an initial allocation of $23 million to natural resource management (NRM) and industry groups under the Reef Rescue Plan. However Growcom chief advocate Mark Panitz added “The Premier has largely singled out farmers as responsible for damage to the Great Barrier Reef in what we believe is a smokescreen for the Queensland Government’s own lack of action and commitment to funding real solutions under the Reef water quality plan launched in 2003.

“The government is now calling for regulation despite there being no scientific justification for such a position. Even in the Government’s own recently released scientific consensus statement, a close reading reveals an emphasis on improving information for growers and incentives to change practice rather than regulation.'” 

So where from here? Premier Bligh is obviously wanting to create an image of herself as the Captain at the Helm, in total control of the ship, to appeal to unthinking and uninformed voters.

Meanwhile to achieve positive outcomes, primary industry organisations have linked with the Federal Government and regional natural resource management (NRM) groups to develop a new Reef Rescue program.

It will have clear actions and targets to increase the use of good practice activities in reef catchments. Like the Rural Water Use Efficiency program which was delivered under contractual arrangements with the Department of Natural Resources and Water that achieved significant advances over recent years.

Mr Panitz saying “A partnership with the Queensland Government on reef and water quality could significantly add to the Reef Rescue program and would be much more productive than divisive statements in the media and a sledge hammer regulatory approach without consultation.”

It is now up to the Premier to decide whether to use the whip or the carrot to achieve her aims. Either way there will be more taxpayers’ money available to primary producers to fund a proportion of the cost of on-farm improvement.

Ian Morgan
Mackay, North Queensland

This post is a longer version of an article first published in The North Queensland Register  and is republished here with permission.

 Enjoyingthe blue waters of the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns in April 2006.  Photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy.

Nuclear Power Reality Check: A Note from Roy Innis

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Abundant, reliable, affordable energy makes our jobs, health, living standards and civil rights possible. Remember that when you read about people losing their jobs or having to choose between heating, eating, paying the rent or mortgage, giving to charity, or covering healthcare, college, car or retirement costs.  Remember it when Congress makes more hydrocarbon energy off limits – or puts more obstacles in the path of nuclear power that generates a fifth of America’s electricity.

I recently visited nuclear power plants and a fuel reprocessing plant in France, which gets almost 80% of its electricity from uranium. And I’ve read some shockingly ill-informed claims about nuclear power and its supposed alternatives. Here are some essential facts.

1. Reliability.

Nuclear plants generate electricity over 90% of every year, shutting down only occasionally for maintenance, repairs and changing fuel rods. Wind turbines can be relied on just 30% of the time, on average – and just 10% of the time during hot summer days, when air conditioners are on high, but there’s barely a breeze.

2. Operational safety.

Three Mile Island was the “worst accident in US history.” But it injured no one and exposed neighboring residents to the radioactive equivalent of getting a CT scan or living in Denver for a year. It led to major improvements in nuclear plant management, operation and training.

The Chernobyl disaster was due to its shoddy design, construction, maintenance and management. According to the World Health Organization, “fewer than 50” people died as a direct result of this massive meltdown and fire, and nearly all were employees and rescue workers.

3. Storage of used nuclear fuel.

The Energy Department spent 25 years and $10 billion studying the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, before concluding that it will meet all safety standards. In fact, the largest expected annual radiation dose for someone living near this geologically stable site would be less than 1 millirem – compared to 1,000 millirem from an abdominal CT scan.

America’s 104 nuclear plants generate enough electricity for nearly 75,000,000 homes – and produce about 2,000 tons of “spent” uranium fuel annually. So Yucca will be able to hold all the used fuel from the past 50 years, plus another 35 years of used fuel, without expanding on the original design.

Spent fuel and other wastes (high-level defense wastes, plus low-level wastes like protective clothing) are solid materials. There is no liquid that can leak into rocks or groundwater. Liquid wastes, like water used in reactors, are treated and reused.

4. Transportation safety.

Shipping containers are constructed from layers of steel and lead, nearly a foot thick, and carried on trucks or rail cars. (The 25 to 125-ton containers are too heavy to go in airplanes.) They’ve been slammed into concrete walls at 85 mph, dropped 30 feet, burned 30 minutes in 1475-degree fires, and submerged in water for hours. They haven’t broken or leaked.

Over 3,000 shipments of spent fuel have traversed 1.7 million miles, with no injuries, deaths or environmental damage. Only one significant accident occurred. A semi-truck overturned while avoiding a head-on collision, and the trailer and attached container crashed into a ditch. No harmful releases of radioactivity ever occurred.

That hasn’t stopped imaginative writers from saying “catastrophic” accidents could put “millions” of Americans at risk of exposure to “deadly radiation” or even death, especially if an airplane crashed a cargo of nuclear wastes into a city. They’ve been watching too many Hollywood movies, where every car accident becomes a raging inferno.

5. Theft and terrorism.

The notion that spent (or even fresh) power plant fuel could be stolen and turned into a powerful bomb is likewise more Hollywood than reality.

Those pesky little atomic numbers and enrichment levels are confusing, but important. Weapons grade materials are plutonium, uranium 233 and highly enriched (better than 20%) U235. Power plant fuel is slightly enriched (under 4%) U235. Spent fuel is U238, which cannot cause a chain reaction.

Turning spent fuel into a bomb would require sophisticated reprocessing facilities, which terrorists are unlikely to have. Even a “dirty bomb” (radioactive materials around a non-nuclear explosive) would cause more fear than actual damage. And the US nuclear industry’s commitment to safety applies to plant design and management, shipping and storing wastes, and guarding against theft and terrorism.

The bottom line? We need the electricity that nuclear power provides, and we can get it safely. Just try to imagine life without all the things that require electricity. Remember the pain, inconvenience and financial losses you or people you know suffered when storms or blackouts knocked out the electrical power.

Consider the warnings of experts: We are dangerously close to experiencing major brownouts and blackouts in many parts of the United States, especially in our western states, because we haven’t built the power plants and transmission lines we need for a growing population that depends on electricity 24/7/365.

We need to conserve more, install more insulation and better windows, and use more efficient light bulbs, computers, servers, heaters and air-conditioners. We need more wind and solar power, where those sources make economic, practical and environmental sense. But we also need a lot more affordable, reliable electricity from nuclear power plants.

Ponder how far our heating, cooling, communication and other technologies have come in just 100 years – and where we’re likely to be 50 or 100 years from now. However, we’re not there yet.

Futuristic technologies – like solar generators orbiting above the Earth, beaming electrical power to urban receivers – for now are pure science fiction. They’ll be reality about when Scotty beams Captain Kirk back to the Enterprise. We need to work on them. But we need real energy for real people, today.

Otherwise, homes, factories, offices, schools and hospitals will go dark. Bread winners will go jobless. Energy prices will soar even higher. Families won’t have basic necessities, much less luxuries. And poor and minority citizens will see civil rights gains rolled back, because only energy and a vibrant economy can turn constitutionally protected rights into rights we actually enjoy.

Roy Innis is chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, co-chair of the Campaign to Stop the War on the Poor, and author of Energy Keepers – Energy Killers: The new civil rights battle.