Broome LNG has risks - The West Australian

Broome LNG has risks - The West Australian: She warned that rises in prostitution, sexual infections, sex assaults, relationship issues, drug trafficking and alcohol problems were possible.

Dr Holden said isolating the construction workforce in an accommodation camp was justified but it was unrealistic to think the proponent or local government could stop them going out in Broome.

Woodside's incomplete, incorrect and incompetent reports on James Price Point

Only because of a Freedom of Information application did it come to light that the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) had deferred the finalization date of their report on the Strategic Assessment for the Browse LNG, proposed for Walmadan (James Price Point) again.

Why? Because Woodside continues to provide numerous incomplete, incorrect and incompetent reports on the proposed LNG refineries at James Price Point. This time it was their dredging reports that fell short of the truth.

Still there has not been an official media release, no open public statement nor has there been any information on their decision to defer their Report on the EPA’s website. Surely, informing the thousands of people who made submissions to the SAR about this delay would be the ethical and professional action to take, given the local, state, national and international controversies surrounding the project.

It’s been left up to the public to uncover a whole range of very valid environmental and the blatant incompetence in the majority of Woodside’s research and reports. Over two years, the Broome Community members and scientists have proven and exposed that most of Woodside’s reports on whales, dugongs, turtles, dolphins, sea grass, heritage-listed dinosaur track sites, endangered bilbies, and the ecological endangered vine thickets (remnant rainforest) have been famished for facts.

If we had the finances we could easily prove that many of their engineering and technical construction issues could also be ripped to shreads. However, just given the simple facts like Woodside are seriously considering building the nation’s largest industrialised zone on sand dunes, in a location that experiences some of the world’s largest tides, in a region has been identified as the four fastest place in the world to be effected by rising sea levels due to climate change and it’s been predicted through science (something Woodside knows little about) will be subjected to more extreme weather conditions. Surely, these particulars should sound the alarm bells in the pocket ears of their shareholders.

You only have to take a flight over the coastal strip of the Dampier Peninsula during high tides or storm activity to visible see and clearly grasp how the ocean sediment moves along this coast, how fast it travels and the distance carried. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that this sediment travels north to south, from James Price Point directly to Gantheaume Point in Broome and any dredging regime would see the staining and fouling of the ironic Cable Beach.

If we have not learn from the current anguish being experienced in Gladstone and the present fears for the Great Barrier Reef because of the dredging and dumping of highly toxic wastes, what will it take to convince people, especially the local fishing club and their members? www.couriermail.com.au/.../gladstones-dredging.../story-e6freoof-www.brisbanetimes.com.au/.../environmentalists-halt-gladstone-harb.

They can kiss their fish but they can also kiss their famously popular fishing location known as the peanut or puddle goodbye, should this lunacy be executed and a massive industrial port is built in the fishing haven.

But the dredging issue is but one of the many outstanding grim concerns that have not been adequately addressed by Woodside.
• Water use and access,
• the proposed kilometers of breakwater and jetty constructions,
• cumulative and downstream impacts,
• projected greenhouse gas emissions during and after construction (not to mention the emissions from the rigs source themselves),
• incessant marine and atmospheric contamination,
• ecological significance of local Monsoon Vine Thickets,
• source and types of toxic and noxious emissions,
• noise and light contamination,
• wastes disposal,
• nature of health problems for workers and residents (east as far as Derby, as the wind and crows fly)
• and the unbearable loss of a safe and progressive community.

The EPA also has a statutory duty to consider Aboriginal heritage and culture issues arising from proposals under assessment where the impacts arising from a proposal on the biophysical environment may adversely affect such matters.

Recently, the EPA in one of its assessment reports concluded that a physical place having a cultural significance to Aboriginal persons may properly fall within the definition of ‘environment’ in the EP Act. In addition, the EPA advised that if it becomes aware that Aboriginal heritage (relevant to a specific site or sites) is a potential issue, it is obliged to determine its relevance.


Joseph Roe, Goolarabooloo Law man speaking, in Country with Members of the EPA Board about his cultural heritage,and his obligations to that Law. He is explaining that the Songline is in fact one continuous site, traveling the entire length of the Dampier Peninsular, Nov 2011.

EPA may determine proposals unacceptable on the basis of impacts of heritage and culture. So when and how is the EPA going to meet these obligations in their assessment given the fact that EPA Board members were shown some of the Aboriginal Heritage Sites along the Song Cycle last year by the Goolarabooloo Traditional Owners, within the heart of this criminal proposal?

Meanwhile, Woodside’s long awaited social impacts report appears to be firmly stuck in the pipe line and like all their other supplementary reports concealed from public view. Phone polls of residents have been conducted over the last couple of weeks by a company based in Tasmania, but nothing is known as who they are working for.

No one had any idea that the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities employed Dr Annie Holden, from ImpaxSIA Consulting, in March 2011 to undertake an independent expert peer review of the Social Impact Assessment. These components of the Browse LNG Precinct Strategic Assessments were compiled by Department of State Development and the Kimberley Land Council.

So why the Broome community wasn’t informed that a peer reviewed report on the social impacts reports was undertaken and why were its findings cloak-and-dagger? Why has it taken yet another Freedom of Information application and over year since its completion to obtain access to this Report?

Well, if you read the open paragraph in the summary findings I am sure all will be made clear. Follow the link provided below to access the complete report.

Summary Findings
In relation to the SIA, the interpretation of the results and the assessment itself are inadequate. In particular, in view of the size of the construction workforce (up to 6,000 workers for two years),consideration of likely impacts and impact management associated with construction should be more clearly separated out from likely impacts and impact management during the operational phase. I am also of the view that some negative social impacts that could potentially occur at the margins of the affected communities, associated with the presence of the construction workforce, are either not identified at all or are seriously under-estimated.

So all this brings into question what other reports are being keep undisclosed and why is the EPA acting unlawfully in not releasing the many supplementary submissions, reports and information summaries to the public?

We also must remember that the EPA-approved Browse LNG Scoping Report, which clearly stated that a comprehensive Peer Review Panel would be established to assess the whole SAR because of the complexity of the project. However, now the EPA considers that this process is no longer necessary, despite the obvious and widespread flaws in the studies the proponent has provided to the EPA.

Given the seriousness of the issues at stake and the irreversible consequences of any decision to approve it, the EPA has a responsibility to Broome and its surrounding communities, the public of WA, our environment and the Goolarabooloo Traditional Owners to conduct this assessment with the utmost rigor and transparency and to report without fear or favour, however long it takes so as to ensure all the ts are crossed and the i’s dotted.

ImpaxSIA 2011 Final Peer Review Browse Basin SIA-3

May the month for Woodside and the end of James Price Point

Description: http://www.energynewsbulletin.net/web_images/grey.gif

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

NO ONE can accuse Peter Coleman of rushing to put his stamp on Woodside Petroleum but Slugcatcher reckons there are three days in May shaping as the invisible chief executive officer’s time to shine.

May 2 will be Coleman’s official coming out party when he fronts shareholders in Australia’s biggest pure oil and gas company at his first annual meeting of Woodside.

May 12 will be his official “birthday”, the date on which his appointment was announced last year.

May 30 will be his official “feet under the desk” day, the first anniversary of the time he slipped silently into the office previously occupied by his loud predecessor, Don Voelte.

It is possible that there will be other reasons for May to emerge as the month when a new-look Woodside finally emerges from what has been a pretty awful period for the accident-prone company.

A fourth red-letter event could be a keenly anticipated final exit from the Woodside share register by its biggest but politically unacceptable shareholder, Royal Dutch Shell.

A fifth red-letter day could be the first LNG shipment from the overdue and over-budget Pluto project which was to have been Woodside’s great “break-free” project but instead joined Rankin A, Goodwyn and Cossack Pioneer as just another engineering embarrassment.

Whichever way you analyse Woodside, May could be the start of a dramatic and overdue period of change which has been expected since Coleman was plucked out of ExxonMobil and charged with the job of changing the culture of an Australian business that had lost its way.

Speculation of a final Shell sell-down, which has been lurking in the background for months, got a kick along last week when the Anglo-Dutch oil giant filed an updated statement of its stake in Woodside which had slipped from 24.3% to 23.3%, a result of taking cash as dividends rather than shares available under the Woodside dividend reinvestment scheme.

The refusal to participate in the DRS sent a powerful signal that Shell really does want out and its exit is only a function of price.

Loading the first Pluto cargo could be the trigger for a revival in Woodside’s share price, which sagged alarmingly over the past year, despite the high oil price.

From a peak of $50.85 exactly 12 months ago Woodside sagged as low as $29.76 last September.

It is back to around $35.18 but that still means it is closer to its 12-month low than its 12-month high.

Of the other events scheduled for May, the twin birthdays for Coleman (his appointment and first day in the office) are of little consequence, except to serve as milestones on his career path and act as reminders that he is hardly a human dynamo.

There has been a cleaning of senior executive ranks but that’s what always happens when a new CEO is parachuted in over the heads of ambitious in-house staff.

The May 2 annual meeting could be more significant date and perhaps one that Coleman and his fellow directors really ought to use as an event to deliver good news via a significant announcement to placate an increasingly unhappy shareholder base.

Measuring just how gloomy Woodside shareholders have become over the past few years is not easy.

The only opinion poll of shareholders is when they get to vote at the annual meeting and even then it’s a charade because institutional investors dictate the events of the day.

But The Slug reckons it will take a major and very positive announcement to appease the angriest of Woodside shareholders who have watched their company stumble from crisis to crisis without any sense of urgency, or awareness on the part of directors that they are responsible for other people’s money.

The share price tells the story and while most other big oil and gas companies have lost ground over the past 12 months, Woodside has been the biggest loser with its 30.8% collapse standing out alongside a 21% fall by Origin, a 13% fall by Santos and a 5% fall by Oil Search.

Some shareholders, out of politeness, will say a few kind things about the first year of Coleman’s rein.

Others, annoyed at losing almost a third of the value of their investment, might ask what he’s going to do about it or why he is taking so long to do something.

Coleman, of course, can play the “Titanic card” and say it takes a long time to change the direction of a big ship.

But if he does that he risks being reminded about what happened to the Titanic, which was the White Star Line’s biggest ship until its skipper guided it into an iceberg 100 years ago.

James Price Point alarm-raised-over-impact-of-gas-hub-dredging

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/13352234/alarm-raised-over-impact-of-gas-hub-dredging/


FLIP PRIOR, The West Australian April 5, 2012, 9:06 am

A Federal Government review of Woodside’s planned dredging program at James Price Point has revealed serious concerns about the potential impact on the marine environment from toxins, including arsenic and zinc.

The Federal Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities review was obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Wilderness Society.

The 2011 Federal review considered the Department of State Development’s revised coastal modelling work done after it delivered the Browse strategic assessment report, in December 2010.

The 2011 review found several deficiencies in the earlier assessment.

Reviewers were concerned that the assessment had failed to address the potential for dredging to release arsenic, nickel and zinc into the water.

While all occur naturally in the environment, at high concentrations they can be toxic to marine invertebrates and phytoplankton – a major concern for aquaculture and fishing industries in the region.

The review found that while modelling was conducted over a wide area, data had only been calibrated at one point in 18m of water, which was relatively deep. Most of the dredging will occur in shallower waters.

The basic modelling had not been tested widely.

The missing information made it difficult for the Federal reviewers to have confidence in the modelling results, particularly about the cumulative effects of the dredging plume over time.

The Federal review said the assessment was based on dredging taking 12 months but it was likely to take longer, with a potentially different impact on the environment.

Other details that would normally be addressed in a dredging assessment had either not been included or not discussed in sufficient detail, the review said.

Reviewers said additional assessments must be carried out to quantify risks before any approvals were granted.

They found “sparse information” on modelling, with insufficient data and some “counter-intuitive results” from testing.

Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Authority announced it had delayed its decision on the proposed gas project from this month until late May to allow time for Woodside to deliver additional dredging data.

A Woodside spokesman said the company was providing additional information to the EPA based on revised modelling.

“This modelling has been informed by more detailed engineering design and environmental studies completed since the SAR was released in December 2010,” he said.

Wilderness Society spokesman Peter Robertson called on the Federal Government to conduct a fully independent scientific peer review of all modelling submitted by the proponents.
He said the public could have no confidence in their findings.

Rare sea turtle nests in Kimberley at proposed gas refinery site « Earth First! Newswire

Rare sea turtle nests in Kimberley at proposed gas refinery site « Earth First! Newswire: The findings from the recent sea turtle study were released yesterday, casting further doubts over the scientific integrity of the W. Australia Government’s environmental impact assessment for the James Price Point gas hub.

SeaTurtles.org reported the nesting of the sea turtle in December and posted a video of the unusual sea turtle with the details here.

The peer-reviewed study into marine turtle nesting in the James Price Point area led by University of Melbourne marine biologist Malcolm Lindsay found 14 turtle nests and 38 false crawls over the 2011/2012 nesting season, including the first ever recorded hawksbill hybrid in Australia.

Traditional Goolarabooloo elder, Phillip Roe, commented yesterday: “[W.A. Premier] Barnett can try to paint James Price Point as insignificant, but we know that there are dinosaur footprints, bilbies, turtle nests, whales, songlines, registered sacred sites all here, this is a sacred site worth protecting for all Australians, black or white.”

“The hybrid hawksbill is exciting news, but even more so is the science that supports local knowledge that James Price Point is important to sea turtles,” said Teri Shore, Program Director at SeaTurtles.org in California. Shore has provided expert comments and testimony on the environmental analysis of the Browse Basin natural gas projects. She has traveled to the Kimberley to help monitor flatback nesting beaches and lend support to local activists striving to halt the fossil fuel expansion.

Firey scenes at FIFO meeting in Broome about james

Firey scenes at FIFO meeting (video) Prime7 - Yahoo!7

Broome hosted the Senates House of Representatives Inquiry into the Fly-In, Fly-Out (FIFO) workforce practices in regional Australia, on Friday, over a three hour period.

These Senates representatives flew in and flew out without affording our community the time needed to form the slightest of insights into our concerns as a community around the estimated 10,000 people fly in and fly out invasion workforce and hang on hopefuls needed for the proposed LNG refineries at James Price Point (Walmadan).

There was clearly a complete lack of interest amongst the representatives to really delve into the subject matter and little or no enthusiasm to really inquire about the truth and reality of our community’s current FIFO.




No genuine empathy was shown to us as a community that is currently facing the nation’s most serious of soul destroying industrialisation of:  our community,  Cultural Heritage, heartlands and recreation havens, living teaching resources, fishing and crabbing grounds and our bush tucker and medicine vine thicket rainforests.

Broome and all the outlining Dampier communities are looking down the barrel of: complete devastation of our multicultural tolerant communities, a heighten intensification of local economic disparity with unimaginable and intolerable environmental and health impacts.

The committee’s lack of interest was highlighted by the of quality questions asked, lack of follow-up to the answers given and no real open free or informative discussion took place.

The Senate Committee flew in at great expense to the taxpayer and yet as far as dollar for value goes Broome had their attention for the grand total of three hours. Two and a half hours was allocated to Small Business West Kimberley, Broome Shire Council, Broome Chamber of Commerce, and Ron Johnston.

Which gives rises to the most obvious question, how did a private business man, (Ron) whose principle source of income is accommodation units and who clearly has an enormous financial interest in the FIFO industry manage to get the privilege of half an hour to speak to this Senate Committee?

No representatives from any state government attended these hearings, such as the health, education & training, social welfare and justice, local police, or Indigenous departments or service agencies. Why, when it will be these very state government departments who will be forced into mitigating all the social dissection of our community with the infiltration of thousands of FIFO workers?. It is these very same departments that are currently struggling to cope in Karrartha and Port Hedland and who are at their wits end to retain staff, secure accommodation for them and offer some service in an ever increasing demanding situation.

It was very disappointing that non-government agencies did not submitted a paper or address this Hearing. Indigenous organisations, community service providers, health and education advisors, environmental, youth, women, men and community organistions did not attend and given the facts that it will be these very same locally cash strapped organisations who will have to deal with the forecast arrivals of the additional calamity on their already stretched and struggling services.

However, in all reality, it is right to say that the general community were not adequately informed of this Hearing and it is dubious as to why the Shire did not use their established community networks to notify the community of this Hearing, either on its website or their weekly update in the local paper. Given the level of community concern centred on this issue, it was the very least the shire could have done. It was left up to a number of concerned Broome residents, who were given less than thirty (30) minutes, in sum total, to raise all the social and environmental associated concerns, as the economic issues had been adequately addressed by the selected few beforehand.

Community speakers, were given three 3 minutes each in which to convey the immense apprehensions that we have as a community in regards to the proposed LNG refineries at James Price Point and the fly-in, fly-out ramifications and consequences that a project of this size and nature would bring to our town.  There was little or no time to touch on the recent past experiences and the present situation the Broome community currently faces with the few FIFO workers that are currently based in town.

Matters such as health, affordable housing, homelessness rates, housing waiting lists, the suicide issue, sexually transmitted diseases, mental health, limited capacity, resourses, and services, under age prostitution and the sense of loss of community and place and all the other vital issues that were barely touched on. Environmental issues arising from mass FIFO invasion like water use, the creation of massive rubbish dumps for construction and toxic wastes pit, air quality and many other matters of environmental concerns were given no exposure or voiced in this Hearing.

However, what this standing committee did do was clearly illustrate the exact reasons why  fly in and fly out practices do not work. They fly in with little or no knowledge about our community’s: antiquity, social temperament, shared principles and our expectations and anxieties for our future. They gain a very superficial, narrow and staged managed perspective of our community and the current social, economic or environmental issues we face.

The emotional stress caused, the economic hardships, the intolerable corporate bullying and the attempted buying of community loyalty, corrupt and irresponsible authorities, separation and segregation of our families and community and the complete and total lack of honest governance and accountability, are all part of the impacts and ramifications we have and are experiencing since Woodside flew into town. We were also subjected to a fly in and fly out police force last year, that came into our community to try and degrade and humiliate and which really only resulted in taking  good community policing back twenty 20 years.

The fact, that it is already necessary to accommodate Woodside and their contractors FIFO in a tourist resort and a fortified compound in a residential area, next to a school, is highly questionable. However, the local primary age school children are currently targeting this compound with stones and verbals. Why, because even the children feel their unfriendly alien nature and smell their airs of white superiority that seeps out onto the street and trickles into their neighborhood.

They fly in and then they fly out that’s why Broome coined its very own phrase, seagulls, years ago, they usually fly in a flock, dress in grey, squawk around, pick up crumbs of information that have been hand feed to them and then they fly away, thinking their job is done and what easy pickings.

Woman executive to sue Woodside again - The West Australian

Woman executive to sue Woodside again - The West Australian:
Ms Mustard lodged a Supreme Court writ against Woodside last week alleging company chief executive Don Voelte, who has since left the firm, defamed her in front of 200 delegates at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association annual conference in April last year during a seminar.

James Price Point Exhibition opening this Friday the 30th of March – Christian Fletcher Photo Images – Landscape Photography Australia

James Price Point Exhibition opening this Friday the 30th of March – Christian Fletcher Photo Images – Landscape Photography Australia:

The Power and The Passion exhibition comes to Perth after a successful showing in Broome. It features the images of renowned photographers such as Australian and West Australian Landscape Photographer of the Year Christian Fletcher, Adam Monk, Nigel Gaunt,Ingetje Tadros, Rod Hartvigsen, David Bettini, Fleming Bo Jensen, Jim Delios and featuring audio and visual by Jeff Skinner.

Come along and see why it is worth fighting for. Bring your friends and family. Be inspired and plan your own trip to see this “remarkable” piece of the Kimberley. I’ll be there to talk to people along with lots of the other photographers involved with the exhibition. It is going to be a great night.

Kicks off at 6.30 pm at the Perth Town Hall, Corner Barrack and Hay Street.

Gas leak at North Sea platform

Gas leak at North Sea platform: French oil giant Total, which operates the stricken Elgin platform 241 kilometres off Aberdeen on Scotland's east coast, said the leak was the most serious problem it had faced in the North Sea in a decade.

Woodside & State Government Issued Our Notice of Intention To Keep James Price Point

On the 26th March 2012, Sandy Dann from Radio Goolarri in Broome interviewed Nik Wevers,community spokes person for the Broome Community No Gas Campaign. The interview focuses on a recent unveiling of another Cultural Heritage Awareness sign on Manari road and raises issues around a proposed gas processing facility on the coast north of Broome, Western Australia.

House of Representatives Committees – Parliament of Australia

House of Representatives Committees – Parliament of Australia

PO Box 6021, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600 | Phone: (02) 6277 4162 | Fax: (02) 6277 4773 | Email: ra.reps@aph.gov.au | www.aph.gov.au/ra

Public Hearing program
Friday, 30 March 2012
Portlight Room
Mercure Hotel
Weld Street
Broome, WA

The public hearing will open with a Welcome to Country offered by the Yawuru traditional owners.

Time Witness
9.35am
Small Business West Kimberley 10.15am Break
10.30am
Broome Shire Council
11.00am
Broome Chamber of Commerce
11.30am
Mr Ron Johnston
12.00pm
Community statement

Members of the community will have the opportunity to make short statements to the Committee of no more than three minutes. Please arrive early and register with the secretariat if you wish to speak. 12.30pm Close

The secretariat can be contacted on 0407 406 337.

Hearings may be followed live (audio only) at: http://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/Watch_Parliament

Submissions are available from the Inquiry’s website: www.aph.gov.au/fifo.

James Price Point LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 084. QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE (Of which some notice has been given) Tuesday, 20 March 2012

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
084.
QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE
(Of which some notice has been given)
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Hon Robin Chapple to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs.
With regard to procedures within the Department of Indigenous Affairs (DIA) in relation to Aboriginal Heritage, and further to Question without notice number 004 I ask:
(1) With reference to Answer (1) in Question 004, will the Minister table the
"interim measures" being implemented?
(2) If no to (2), why not?
(3) Will the DIA undertake consultation with Aboriginal stakeholders prior to
adopting new procedures and guidelines?
(4) If no to (3), why not? If yes to (3), when will this consultation occur?
(5). Will the Minister guarantee that no currently registered sites will be de-registered
under the new procedures?
I thank the HOD. Member for some notice of,this question.
(l)The measure simply relates to affording those with an interest in the land a right to be
heard before a site is placed on the Sites Register.
(2) Not applicable.
(3) All stakeholders will be consulted.
(4) Once the draft documents are prepared.
(5) The procedures will determine how sites are placed on the register and how they are
taken off it.
Minister for Indigenous Affairs .

Woodside Security Tampering with Cultural Heritage Signs James Price Point

Woodside Genocide at Walmandan (James Price Point)

Look, lets just be done with it! Really, why doesn’t the state government just declare that Woodside can make its own sovereign state? Woodside would delight in flying high their own flag, would love the concept of their very own anthem and the prospect of having people with a passport to access a visa to enter into Country.

Given the amount of amendments to Legislation; variations to Standing Orders; the modifications to the Regulations; the introduction of brand new planning procedures and just how far the current state government is willing to bend over backwards to accommodate Woodside, surely granting them their own sovereign state would be far easier, much more efficient and considerably cheaper.

Woodside’s ability to sidestep the law, their capacity to avoid any kind of financial consequence and their proficiency in making up their own rules, and laws as they go, clearly demonstrates that they have all the attributes necessary to govern, licence and approve their own permits.

It would save heaps of work for the public servants and would be a welcome relief for the Broome Shire. Woodside already have their own police force at their beck and call and a mercenary security thug force, who act like an army, so they are already half way there. They could even issue themselves a social licence to operate, they would not be forced to try and buy one and would save themselves a pretty penny.



The Barnett’s government who are the proponent for this project has spared no expense or provisions to ensure that this corporation (who acts as their little go between, and by doing so) gets what this corporation wants, without hindrance or question. They have been allowed to operate above the law, in fact all the state government department’s compliance and integrity units and even the law enforcers have all turned a blind eye ,to their statutory duties in order to work without fear of losing their favor.

The proof is in the pudding and just because it is quiet and comparatively peaceful in Country at the moment, be assured that the wheels of the underhanded are busy at work, planning their next strategies in their desperate attempts to create some form of legal and ethical legitimacy for the stealing of Indigenous lands, the locking up of Country and destroying our Cultural Heritage.

So if you thought the DAP documentation was worth throwing and the process highly dubious, then you will not be too surprised to see what Woodside and their government lackeys have cooked up now. To avoid at all costs transparency, consequence and monitoring they are basically seeking to excise out the land earmarked for the natural gas refineries, between James Price Point and Barred Creek and override the local Shire’s control with 4 new state controlled planning arrangements.

'In achieving a statutory plan for the Precinct, Woodside has requested the Minister for Planning to authorise the preparation of an improvement plan (Improvement Plan). The Improvement Plan will authorise the creation of a subsequent Improvement Scheme (Improvement Scheme) which is the statutory mechanism by which a structure plan (Structure Plan) will be prepared for the Precinct.'

The Tender to develop the improvement plan has been advertised and apparently already granted. The Tender documents are mainly a rewrite of same vomitus jargon:
'The location of the proposed Precinct in the vicinity of James Price Point was chosen via an extensive site selection process involving consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders and a collaborative review of a comprehensive set of technical, environmental, heritage, economic and social criteria.' Blah blah blah.

So let’s get this straight: first we are told that the Broome Shire has limited development planning powers and the Interim Development Order No. 4 (IDO) is inadequate. Then we are gagged and dragged through the Development Assessment Panel fiasco so the State (proponent) could grant a temporary site access to Woodside, for last year’s entire illegal front end engineering destruction. Now we have to endure an Improvement Plan which in turn creates an Improvement Scheme which leads the way to a Structure Plan.

If this parallel planning processing and enforced escalation policy is supposed to increase efficiencies by reducing approval timelines and clearances, then someone needs to tell them “they’re dreaming”. The only thing these four separate processes will accomplish are procedural nightmares that will eventually tie them up in knots, drown them in paper work, swallow them whole in meetings and it will all end in tears, if not the Courts.

There is certainly no procedural fairness, no transparency procedures and certainly no natural justice ingrained within any of these four state driven planning strategies.
Outwardly, the State and Woodside are trying to treat the new NOITTs as a mere formality. So, why it is taking them months and months to: finalise the configuration that defines clearly the footprint of the proposed precinct and reissue the Notices of Intention to Take (NOITTs)? There is a broomer that the NOITTs will be issued within days.

The Contractor who won the Tender must assess 'the constraints on the land area of the Precinct and the limits to its use as defined within the Native Title Agreements. Good luck!

KLC is a member of the 'working group' however, given the decision made on 22/02/2012 to legally separate the two Native Title Claimant, it not only calls into question KLC’s position on the 'working group' but also all the Browse LNG Precinct Native Title Agreements ever signed. All is highly questionable whether the state or Woodside wish to acknowledge it or not.

The status the SAR is really not mentioned in great detail within the Tender documents. But it does go on to state that: 'It is expected that Woodside will be in a position to make a final investment decision (FID) by mid-2013, and process first gas from 2017. This is interesting because Minister Ferguson's office has still not mentioned if the milestone extension has in actual fact been granted.

Woodside is dressing up their refineries, so bring on the marching band, play up the anthem, hoist up their flag and get your visa application ready. Woodside is invading our community , country and culture , in a vain attempt to make it their own.

Woodside meets Cyclone Lua at James Price Point

Sorry about this but you need to double click on the video to get the full screen effect.

Irreversible Erosional Environmental Damage at James Price Point

According to Woodside’s Environmental Management Plan for James Price Point they state:
• Areas adjoining soil stockpiles shall be protected from degradation by the implementation of erosion (and sediment) control measures. Monitoring for erosion and erosion risk will be undertaken regularly to ensure that any erosion that does occur is promptly mitigated.

The reasons why the Monsoonal Vine Thicket (Remnant Rainforest) between James Price Point and Quondong is the largest and most diverse on the Dampier Peninsular is because when it rains the water naturally flows toward the sea, replenishing the forest, the shallow Walla Aquifer and all the native wells found along the base of the Holocene sand dune system.

What Woodside have effectively created with all their grid land clearing works last year is sizeable water courses that flow directly down every one of the grid lines from east to west, causing major irreversible erosional environmental damage. Soil nutrients are being leached from the soil and carried along the Woodside’s water courses, pooling in volume. Once these pools have dried out, these very precious nutrients are blown away in the wind along with volumes of top soil, from the cleared gridded land.



What this clearly illustrates is the fact the pindan soil is very difficult to manage and maintain. Once pindan becomes wet is becomes quite greasy and highly mobile.
The following video illustrates one of these water courses on the east side of Woodside’s compound flowing freely to the west, right through the Woodside’s compound, through their environmental brush down area (use to stop the spread of weeds!) spilling out of the compound on the northern side directly into the bush. It continues to flow out onto the Woodside main western access track, off Manari road and pooling, spilling into the bush of both sides of this track.

The footings of the perimeter fence are also being undermined and washed out. If Woodside do not have the ability to manage a small Lay Down Area (industrial block), or the capacity to control erosion issues and make no effort to control the spread of invasive weeds how in hell are they intending to manage the proposed world’s second largest LNG refineries, at James Price Point.

Our pindan country does not have the ability to hold up or withstand a massive industrial complex being slapped on top of it. There is no ground stability or solid bed rock into which to anchor such a development.

Cultural Welcome to Country Signs James Price Point

The Heritage Act provides a comprehensive list of the types of placed to which the Act applies. As defined in section 5 of the Heritage Act, an Aboriginal site can be:
a) Any place of importance and significance where persons of Aboriginal descent have left any object used for any purpose connected with the past or present traditional cultural life of Aboriginal people.
b) Any sacred. Ritual or ceremonial site, which is of importance and special significance to Aboriginal people.
c) Any place the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee thinks is or was associated with Aboriginal people and is of such historical, anthropological or ethnographic value that it should be preserved; and
d) Any place where objects are traditionally stored or places from which objects to which the Heritage Act applies have been removed.



It is an offence under section 17 of the Heritage Act to damage, destroy, etc an Aboriginal site. However, Section 62 of the Heritage Act provides that if a person charged with such an offence can prove that he or she did not know, and could not reasonably be expected to have known, that the place or object to which the charge relates was a place or object to which the Heritage Act applies, then the person is not guilty of the offence.

Therefore, in order to ensure that Woodside and all its contractors cannot claim ignorance as a defense to prosecution, the Goolarabooloo people in association with the Walmadan Protectors and the Broome Community NO Gas Campaign have erected Cultural Welcoming to Country and Informational Signs throughout Country. These signs clearly notify, advise, confirm and ensure that everyone is aware that the intertidal zone, Holocene sand dune system and the fringing Monsoonal Vine Thickets (Remnant Rainforest) on the west side of Manari Road are all part of one continuous, uninterrupted spiritually distinctive Song Cycle path.

This Song Cycle has been previously identified by the WA Museum and the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee established under the Aboriginal Heritage Act as an area containing a large number of Aboriginal Sites. Removal or damage to these signs is also considered an offence.

Woodside in their most recent planning and development application to the Development Assessment Panel within the WA Planning Commission, for their proposed LNG refineries at James Price Point, clearly outlined their intentions of using mechanical equipment, soil and core sampling, drilling, mechanical digging, earthmoving, cutting of countless tracks and undertaking major ground-disturbance works within registered sites of Walmadan, Imbalala, Kundandu, Murdudan, and indirectly affecting Murrjal and Wayirru Wayirru and numerous unregistered sites along the Song Cycle path. Particular crucial concerns are held about Woodside’s proposed tampering and traversing of the Song Cycle path that has never been fragmented or intruded on or in ever before.

The Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee (ACMC) concluded on the 11th July 1991 “All areas defined as the Song Cycle Path are regarded as having important and significant because of the interconnected nature of this network of totemic significances”. “The areas have significance under Section 39 2(a) and (c) and 39.3 of the Aboriginal Heritage Act”. The area of the Song Cycle path was accepted as being defined in accordance with Aboriginal Customary law. The ACMC concluded the “no exploration activity should occur on the areas defined as the song Cycle”.

WOODHEADS IN COUNTRY

ParlInfo - QUESTIONS ON NOTICE : James Price Point (Question No. 1506)

ParlInfo - QUESTIONS ON NOTICE : James Price Point (Question No. 1506): James Price Point

(Question No. 1506)

Senator Siewert asked the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, upon notice, on 16 January 2012:

With reference to the Browse Basin liquefied natural gas (LNG) precinct (James Price Point) and the strategic assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act):

Clink on the above link to access both the questions and answers.