Did you know that beautiful fresh drinking water, between three and five times the capacity of Sydney harbour, goes to waste by being pumped out to sea from Lake Argyle? This waste happens each and every day while Australia has been devastated by bushfires and drought, farm animals burnt to death, as well as thousands of our bush wildlife.
Some fifty years ago, Ernie Bridge said we should bring the water south. It was howled down by politicians of the day as being too expensive. Fifty years later, the water is still going to waste and AUSTRALIA is still being devastated by bushfires and drought due to the lack of water.
On the good side, technology has advanced to the point where a WA company can produce polyethylene continuous pipe extruded from a completely mobile machine. The machine lays the pipe in a ditch and covers it for protection; that’s progress.
As the pipeline moves south it can supply any community with water by means of a branch line from the mainline. The mainline can also carry gas as well as water, as it travels south. The whole of the Kimberly area could be supplied. Anything will grow if there is water. The opportunity for crops of all kinds could be produced to feed Australians and to add to our exports, tropical fruits, coffee and many different grain crops, not to mention stock feed by the thousands of acres, just to name a few of Australia’s agricultural products.
My part in this is to penetrate the government’s armour and it is an almost impossible task, having already spent years on.
I have approached both sides of Government but neither seems very interested. The Labor Government, in particular, is against the pipeline purely because of cost. The first desalination plant Labor put in cost the state $98 million and caused massive crab deaths. Dead crabs of all sizes lined the shores of Cockburn Sound. The second plant went in at a cost of $1.4 billion and caused a massive number of snapper to die and wash up on the beaches. The Labor Government has informed me that they are going to install another desalination plant at Alkimos, a new housing development just north of Perth and in the middle of the settlement area for juvenile rock lobster.
They have seen what the first two plants have done; now they want to kill off WA’s premier industry worth billions of dollars and their programme is set to continue all the way to Geraldton. The purilus, juvenile lobsters approximately 20 to 0.9843 inches in length, are settled on all of the inshore reefs by natural tides which carry them there. Mother nature has done this successfully for hundreds of years, what chance does a small animal have when the area he is dropped into which is supposedly safe, contains saltwater 66% higher than normal the surrounding ocean with a bottom temperature of 60 degrees. Goodbye lobster industry.
I have not heard a peep out of anybody representing the lobster industry probably because a Government’s usual practice is not to talk to industry. If this practice is continued, we don’t only lose the lobster industry but all bottom-dwelling species as well. Whiting, snapper, dhufish all of the reef fishes. I wrote to Matt Tylor of Western Rock Lobster and informed him of some breaches of the Fisheries Act which I had information on. No reply was received. I also gave him the information on desalination plants and their toxic output. Once again, no reply. Is there anybody out there who actually cares about our fishing industries? The current Fisheries Minister obviously doesn’t.
Once that toxic material has been deposited on the bottom, it kills everything, all animals, seaweeds, corals, the lot. There is no working knowledge of the damage it can and does cause.
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