Wonthaggi Protest highlights Desalination Issue for Melbourne, Australia

One per­son was arrest­ed when pro­test­ers car­ry­ing two ban­ners walked onto the Desali­na­tion Plant pro­posed site near Won­thag­gi on May 9. The occa­sion was a ral­ly at the gates of the pro­posed site organ­ised by Water­shed Vic­to­ria and Mel­bourne sup­port­ers.

Pho­tos on Flickr | Action: Get Real on Cli­mate Change | FoE

“Last chance to have your say – if you build it, we won’t pay”

For over two years, anti-desal cam­paign­ers have organ­ised ral­lies, meet­ings, film show­ings, debates and brief­in­gs, out­lin­ing the real costs of this project and putting for­ward the prac­ti­cal alter­na­tives to an ener­gy guz­zling desali­na­tion plant on the Bass Coast. Despite the spi­ralling costs of the pilot plant itself, the scarci­ty of data, crit­i­cism of the project from experts inside and out­side the gov­ern­ment, as well as doubts about financ­ing the project, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to push ahead.

The Desali­na­tion Plant is beng designed to sup­ply 150 Gigal­itres per year for the Mel­bourne water sup­ply and will be man­aged and oper­at­ed through a pub­lic ‑pri­vate part­ner­ship (PPP) being extoled by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment. But many experts say deslaina­tion should be the solu­tion of last resort as it involves huge amount of (CO2 pol­lut­ng) pow­er, and gen­er­ates tonnes of sol­id waste and brine sludge which is pumped back out to sea where it can affect the coastal marine envi­ron­ment.

Alter­na­tive sources for water include recy­cled puri­fied water from treat­ment plants (110 GL/y), stormwa­ter cap­ture (50 GL/y), rain­wa­ter tanks (25 GL/y), Flood Diver­sion (20 GL/y), and instal­la­tion of dual flush cis­terns (15 GL/y) all of which could be done for a frac­tion of the cost of a desali­na­tion plant.

The pro­posed Desal plant at Won­thag­gi will cause 1.18 — 1.57 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon emis­sion equiv­a­lent to 365,000 extra cars on the road, dis­charge 8,800 litres of brine per sec­ond just 500 metres off the beau­ti­ful Bass coast, suck in and kill 380,000 small organ­isms per sec­ond into the plant. Oper­a­tion of the plant will be for prof­it by a multi­na­tion­al infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny, most like­ly Veo­lia who already run the Mel­bourne train sys­tem as Con­nex. The cost (and prof­its) of the plant will be passed on to con­sumers through increas­es in water rates. The peo­ple of Mel­bourne will pay!

In March Fed­er­al Evi­ron­ment min­is­ter Peter Gar­rett gave con­di­tion­al approval of the desali­na­tion plant in Vic­to­ria. Cam Walk­er from Fiends of the Earth crit­i­cised the min­is­te­r­i­al deci­sion say­ing “we believe that his assess­ment is flawed because it is based on infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the pro­jec­t’s pro­po­nent rather than inde­pen­dent stud­ies,” he said. He also raised that the deci­sion does not relate to or con­sid­er the full impacts on species that are not fed­er­al­ly list­ed. “In par­tic­u­lar there are seri­ous con­cerns about the impacts on marine life posed by the plant, includ­ing to whale pop­u­la­tions, which are not addressed in the Minister’s deci­sion. Cam Walk­er said in a news release: Gar­rett fails Vic­to­ria on desali­na­tion plant approval.

The coastal zone and beach­es near­by are a pop­u­lar fish­ing spot that will be effectve­ly ruined. The efflu­ent pipe for the con­cen­trat­ed brine will only take the sludge 500 metres out to sea to destroy the ecol­o­gy of the rocky reef envi­ron­ment, when it should be extend­ed 2 to 3 kilo­me­tres out to sea where the brine can be ade­quate­ly dis­persed by the cur­rents in Bass Strait.

The Bunurong Land Coun­cil is con­cerned over the destrac­tion of abo­rig­i­nal cul­tur­al sites. Steve Comp­ton, Cul­tur­al Offi­cer with the Bunurong Land Coun­cil told the ral­ly “Some of those sites on the prop­er­ty are the largest sites in the Bass Coast region … So basi­cal­ly the Bunurong com­mu­ni­ty have asked me to say to you guys that they’re dead against the Desal. There is bet­ter options for get­ting water like putting rain­wa­ter tanks in Mel­bourne. Basi­cal­ly bug­ger off and leave the coast alone and stop try­ing to dish out big loads of mon­ey to for­eign multi­na­tion­als.” (Youtube Video Report: Bunurong peo­ple Oppose Desali­na­tion Plant)

Gareth Bar­low, a coun­cil­lor from Bass Coast Shire Coun­cil spoke about the coun­cil’s long stand­ing oppo­si­tion to the devel­op­ment. Bass Coast State MP for the Lib­er­al Par­ty spoke of his oppo­si­tion to the plant, while acknowl­edg­ing that the Lib­er­als had pro­posed a small­er State owned Desali­na­tion plant at the last elec­tion which he had sup­port­ed.

Anton from the Clean Ocean Foun­da­tion high­light­ed the amount of water wast­ed in Mel­bourne from the East­ern Treat­ment Plant and Gun­na­mat­ta out­fall and from stormwa­ter runoff. (Youtube Video Report: Desal plant for Mel­bourne what a Waste)

Cam Walk­er from Friends of the Earth came down from Mel­bourne and spoke about the grow­ing dis­qui­et in the Mel­bourne sub­urbs on the Desali­na­tion Plant being pushed by the Brum­by Labor Gov­ern­ment, and the need for more grass­roots activism on water issues in Mel­bourne.

There were also speak­ers who out­lined the rea­sons for oppo­si­tion to the Desali­na­tion Plant for Mel­bourne and its sit­ng near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Why you should oppose a Desali­na­tion plant for Mel­bourne)

A speak­er also cov­ered the prospects and back­ground of Infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny Veo­lia who looks like­ly to be the only pri­vate con­tender for man­ag­ing the plant under a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship. Veo­li­a’s record in water man­age­ment (they are also known as Viven­di) leaves much to be desired with com­mu­ni­ty protests and out­rage for their water man­age­ment and pric­ing prac­tices. (Youtube Video Report: Veo­lia set to run the Won­thag­gi Desali­na­tion Plant sup­ply­ing water to Mel­bourne)

Just as the speak­ers were fin­ish­ing two groups of peo­ple entered the exclu­sion zone of the pilot plant near the dunes to dis­play ban­ners. (Youtube Video report — Pro­tes­tors enter Desal plant exclu­sion zone) One per­son was arrest­ed in the walkon, and was escort­ed back to the ral­ly where he was released after show­ing the police iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The ban­ners said “Fuck off Brum­by” and “Desal Costs the Earth”.

Songs were sun to pop­u­lar tunes at the ral­ly Oppos­ing the Desali­na­tion plant near Won­thag­gi. (Youtube Video Report: Desal Song: We don’t want to swim in your chem­i­cals)

Lots of police were brought from around the region to “pro­tect” the pilot plant, as well as the pres­ence of pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny employ­ees, but in con­trast to Mel­bourne protests the police were pret­ty friend­ly. I guess they are part of the local com­mu­ni­ty and prob­a­bly know many of the peo­ple opposed to the plant. Indeed, some of the police prob­a­bly also dis­agree with the plant being built.