Shake Your Head in Disbelief

Why isn’t the tourist and fishing industries standing shoulder to shoulder with the Broome community to protect all that we love and value? It constantly surprises me, the total lack of interest, engagement or even debate with or within both these industries. Why do they not weight into the debate about the proposed world’s largest LNG refinery being landed at James Price Point, given the fact that it is their very livelihoods are at stake? 

I would have thought that once the Fishing Club heard about Woodside’s plan to dump all their highly toxic dredge material in their favorite fishing ground, the puddle also referred to as the peanut: that they would have been up in arms. 

When the tourist industry learned that Woodside had underestimated their tonnage of toxic dredging material by the millions of cubic metres, and the turbidly effects, you would have thought that the tour operators, resort managers and especially the Broome Visitors Centre would have got together and at least discussed the fact that their major tourist draw card Cable Beach was under serve threat. But nothing, not a word.

But when I saw the latest Woodside report of Marine Impact Zone that has a map showing the spoil influence traveling north on southerly currents, I just shake my head in disbelief.  A Broome delegation with representatives from the shire, the fishing and tourist industries should take a fact finding mission to Gladstone to understand the devastating impacts dredging has had on the health of their harbour, marine life, tourism, the fishing and the community. 

 
But, please do not ask Woodside to sponsor it because it is a fact finding mission not a fact hiding one.

 

   Terrestrial Facilities and Disturbance Footprint Plan by redhanded8937

Pelican corroboree | welcome to Seashepherd in Walmadan - Images | Ingetje Tadros

Pelican corroboree | welcome to Seashepherd in Walmadan - Images | Ingetje Tadros:
 Fabulous images from the Goolarabooloo People doing their Pelican Corroboree welcoming Sea Shepherd to country last year - Walmadany. Copyright Ingetje Tadros
 

BHP, Exxon reveal plans for floating LNG platform

BHP, Exxon reveal plans for floating LNG platform:
The main advantage of floating LNG is that it removes the requirement for building a permanent processing plant onshore, which can prove difficult on many levels, as the Browse project in the Kimberley has demonstrated over recent years.

Floating platforms also allow companies to exploit deepwater oil and gas fields that are far from the coast which previously would have been uneconomic to develop from land.

Given that the platform is essentially a large ship, it can be shifted to other parts of the world to exploit other oil and gas fields once it has finished its work at a particular site.

EnergyNewsPremium.net - On the record: FLNG fracas on the cards

EnergyNewsPremium.net - On the record: FLNG fracas on the cards: In fact, every engagement by Shell’s Australian boss, Ann Pickard, is accompanied by at least 10 journalists asking whether FLNG could be the way to go on the Browse project. Pickard and Woodside chief Peter Coleman’s standard line is that the joint venture is locked into retention lease conditions to progress the project to a “certain decision point”.

Shell and Woodside’s rumoured move to take the Browse development offshore has certainly caused a lot of hand-wringing in Perth, with Premier Colin Barnett finding himself in the rather uncomfortable position of promoting a line of thinking put forward by the unions.

Greens call for immediate freeze on CSG mining - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Greens call for immediate freeze on CSG mining - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Federal Libs open to FLNG - The West Australian

Federal Libs open to FLNG - The West Australian:
"Whilst I respect Colin's position and hear what the unions are saying, if it is a choice between jobs in operating and ongoing maintenance of the facilities from bases in Australia, or no jobs for an onshore option at James Price Point, I know which option I am going to choose."

Mr MacFarlane has an unlikely ally in the debate in Federal Labor Resources Minister Gary Gray, who says FLNG is an opportunity for WA to be at the cutting edge of technology and to develop skills beyond those used in basic construction.

The Federal Government notionally supports land-based processing at James Price Point, but has yet to give environmental approval.

Some in the industry believe it is preparing to ditch its support for the controversial site opposed by green groups which, if true, would mean the coalition's position would assume more than theoretical status should it win in September.

GAS LEAK! - Four Corners

GAS LEAK! - Four Corners

Oil rig workers paid $3 an hour

Oil rig workers paid $3 an hour: A court will next week hear allegations that foreigners were paid less than $3 an hour to work on oil rigs off the West Australian coast when they should have been covered by domestic employment laws.

The case follows a battle by two foreign companies to keep the matter out of court by claiming neither they nor their Filipino employees are subject to Australian laws.

The Fair Work Ombudsman took action in 2011, alleging four men were underpaid a combined $127,425 over nearly two years while working on two North-West Shelf oil rigs operated by Woodside Petroleum.

Former Woodside advisor is new resources minister | Reshuffle | SBS World News

Former Woodside advisor is new resources minister | Reshuffle | SBS World News: Australia's new Resources and Energy Minister Gary Gray has denied there would be any conflict of interest stemming from his previous job as an advisor to oil and gas giant Woodside.

'Critical information missing' from LNG approvals - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

We all understand that Strategic Assessments especially when the state government is the opponent do not work and are a complete and total farce. It's the corporation take over of the science and the distortion of the facts that really is so dishonest and misleading. No, do not worry about your water, we have done the tests, it will be OK. Whales! no they travel way out to sea. Bilbies, well we only found one vagrant one. Ocean currents, no they travel south on northern currents. There are no dinosaur footprints at James Price Point. We have had to deal with these outrageous assertions that has been put out in the public arena as fact. No scientific peer reviews and much much more has been hidden from the public.

We as a community have had to use our own resources to undertake our own community science projects in order to counteract Woodside's and the state government  misleading  science.  By the time Burke makes a decision most of Woodside's science will be out dated or proven to be lacking substantially with real facts.

Transparency and disclosure of extractive industry is pure lip service. Assessments, approvals,  contracts, monitoring, compliance,  payments, receipts, governments, and international financial institutions all play a crucial role in this cycle of corruption, poverty, Indigenous land issues, human rights and environmental abuses that plagues our resource-rich nation. 

Governments need to understand that Australians  have confirmed and are now insisting that our ecologically sustainable development values are based on our nation's overarching  environmental, social and economic principles.  The conservation of our biological diversity and ecological integrity are now considered a  fundamental right and our moral human obligation to the future.


'Critical information missing' from LNG approvals - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):
The environmental assessment process for two of Australia's biggest coal seam gas projects was a "farce", a former Queensland bureaucrat has claimed.

Senior environmental specialist Simone Marsh was part of the Queensland Government team that approved Santos's $18 billion and Queensland Gas Company's (QCG) $20 billion LNG projects in 2010.

Richard Hunter, Goolarabooloo Law Man with a dinosaur track at James Price Point, the ones Woodside and the State government said did not exist in their Strategic Assessment.

She has told tonight's Four Corners program that the final stages of the three-year approval processes were rushed and the environmental impacts not properly assessed.
Audio: CSG environment assessments 'flawed' (AM)

"All the scientific arguments in the world wouldn't have changed things in that situation," she said.

"They had decided they wanted to go ahead with the projects and there was nothing stopping it."