WATERSHED VICTORIA

WINTER WHALE WATCH 2011 LAUNCH

KILCUNDA HALL
2pm, Sunday 29 May

It’s whale watching time again. Watershed Victoria is launching Winter Whale Watch 2011. At the launch you will be able to find out more about last year’s sightings, how to identify different whale species and where are the best whale viewing locations in South Gippsland.

You can phone/sms your sightings to the Whale Watch hotline: 0438 646 677

Please use this form to record your sighting

email completed form to the email address at the bottom of the form

Use this for to help identify Whales

Photograph by Geoff Glare

The shearwater, or muttonbird chicks are leaving!

Watershed volunteers are getting organised over the next few weeks (Easter onwards) to protect the young shearwater birds leaving the Bass Coast for their annual migration to the Arctic (read more in Bulletin No11 on the Watershed website).

Training for monitoring around the plant and between Wonthaggi and Kilcunda Saturday 23rd April 2011. Meet at the Lower Powlett carpark at 6.30pm. Bring warm cloths, torches and good humor. Further details ring 0413 902571.

To read Watershed’s media release  click here

Watershed Victoria released the following press release concerning their chalenge of the legality of the desalination plant Memorandum of Understanding between Victoria Police, DSE and AquaSure Pty Ltd in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Click here to read the press release

Last season 42 separate whales were sited within 10 kilometres of the desal site (stat decs and photos confirm this). The Government’s EES said there were virtually no whales in the area and it was not significant habitat (the EES said only a couple of whales had visited the area over the last five years).

To build on the data from last season we are launching “WHALE WATCH”, an initiative to get details of as many whales as possible visiting us this season. We will then have good data to see how construction and later operation of the desal plant is effecting these beautiful creatures.

Please click on the image above to get a printable version and distribute wherever you can. Phone in any sightings, even any unusual events that you observe on our coast, we should be able to get photographers and observers down asap.

Further details as to where to drop off forms if you see something and fill one in will follow shortly

Form to record Whale sighting.          Download

Document to help you recognise and identify whale species.          Download

It has been about nine months now since the consortium building the desalination plant last met with the community to give any details of what they plan to build.

This is a very unsatisfactory situation. The government have set up a community liason committee that gives the community the same spin answers as the DSE used to. After requesting the answers to many questions over the last months without getting answers we called for another community forum. In the end we have had to set one up ourselves. Senior staff of the consortium have been asked to attend and sit on a panel, as have staff of the Bass Coast Shire. We also have a panel of water, environmental and economic experts to help answer the community’s questions about the desal plant being built and its likely effects.

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FREE ADMISSION:  Saturday 22nd May

Wonthaggi Town Hall, 7.30 pm.

Please click on the poster and print off copies to distribute to those you think might be interested

Friends of the Earth Australia have just published some great stories in their latest magazine -

click here to see the whole thing

The Greenwashing of desalination plants energy use:

http://www.foe.org.au/resources/chain-reaction/editions/chain-reaction-108/greenwashing-desalination/

And an article by Watershed’s Chris Heislers:

http://www.foe.org.au/resources/chain-reaction/editions/chain-reaction-108/victorias-bass-coast-desalination-plant/

And a good one on Water Privatisation:

http://www.foe.org.au/resources/chain-reaction/editions/chain-reaction-108/water-privatisation/

Water is such an important issue for us all that Watershed encourages you to read these and other articles from the latest Friends of the Earth magazine.

WATERSHED

BULLETIN No 8

JANUARY 2010

IS NOW AVAILABLE

Click here, or on the image, to get it

PAST EVENT
FRIDAY 22nd January, 7.30pm, Wonthaggi Town Hall.

A GREAT time was had by around 250 people who attended the Watershed fundraiser show, “Bugger the Polar Bears - THIS IS SERIOUS”. As well as being hilariously funny, there was a fair bit of educational content as well.

Energy use of Melbourne’s Water Supply set to skyrocket!

A quick look at Melbourne Water’s current and future energy use reveals some concerning facts, especially in the light of the need to reduce electricity use and carbon emissions. By clicking the image below you will see a breakdown of current energy usage in all aspects of Melbourne Water’s activities. The energy usage of the desalination plant will mean we will be using at least three and a half times as much energy once Melbourne Water starts sourcing water from the desalination plant.

As requested both Westpac and Nab sent representatives to a meeting with Watershed representatives at Kilcunda on Wednesday 14th October.

Results of our meeting with the banks in relation to our concerns about them not meeting their ethical investment guidelines:

• A presentation was given by Watershed pointing out our concerns and some background to the issues. The banks filled us in on various aspects of how they see their obligations and how they assessed the project.
• The banks have assessed this as a B-grade environmental and social risk project (from an A to C or no ranking range). Our fears were well founded, in that they admitted they largely relied on the proponents environmental assessment (as poorly scoped and resourced as it was), to give the project an acceptable risk assessment.
• Both banks used a consultant firm, originally employed by AquaSure, to “do their assessment”.
• The banks agreed that ongoing assessments would be required, although the scope or scale of this was not available.
• They claimed ‘confidentiality’ as their reason for not previously consulting Watershed, and for not immediately being able to address some of our concerns.
• The consultant, who was present, said he believed that alternatives were not available, based on previous work he had done for Government, and an unspecified document he did not name or indicate availability of.
• Watershed pointed out that by relying on a flawed EES and failing to consider all issues the equator principles 2 and 3 in particular had been inadequately addressed. After our presentation there was general agreement that the issues around using desalination to secure Melbourne’s water supply were many and varied.
• Watershed have left the banks with a list of issues that we feel have been inadequately addressed including some of the above and also the following; we have requested they furnish us with responses to these concerns in a timely fashion:
  • Why was the project given a category B status given the scale, implications for future water policy, location, multiple areas of impact, unresolved concerns and unaddressed issues involved?
  • How can their environmental assessment be adequate given that it either did not, or only inadequately addressed issues such as the need for baseline studies, choice of site or processes, climate change implications, social issues and cumulative impacts of this project over time and with existing and future projects?
  • What do the banks see as ‘consultation’, what will the following plans contain and when will they be available:
    • ’social environmental management plan’
    • ‘borrower’s grievance mechanism’
    • ‘works environmental management plan’
    • ‘ongoing environmental monitoring plan for compliance’ ?
  • What degree of public transparency will the banks require of the above, and when will they be required?

Stay tuned to see whether the banks reassess their involvement in this project or whether we get satisfactory responses to these and other concerns.

• Please continue to send letters with your concerns to the banks, click here.
• Should you be prepared to take action if we do not get satisfactory responses please contact us, click here.
• Click the ‘BANKS’ tab at the top of the page for more information on this issue.