Two climate activists lock on to Bluewaters powerplant in Australia

26th June 2009
Blue­wa­ter Coal-fired pow­er sta­tion protest: lock-ons shut-down and arrests

The fol­low­ing is the media release for yes­ter­day’s action at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie.

Two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie, West­ern Aus­tralia.
The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

Blue­wa­ters Coal-fired Pow­er Sta­tion brought to a halt by for­est activists

Ear­ly this morn­ing, two activists locked onto a con­vey­or belt at Blue­wa­ters coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie. The action is to protest Grif­fin Energy’s deci­sion to burn wood from WA native forests for ener­gy pro­duc­tion. The two activists were arrest­ed and lat­er removed from the con­vey­or belt by police, after more than six hours of pre­vent­ing coal from being fed into the pow­er sta­tion. A third activist has also been arrest­ed at the site.

“Grif­fin Ener­gy is one of WA’s worst con­trib­u­tors to cli­mate change. The com­pa­ny has recent­ly opened yet anoth­er coal-fired pow­er sta­tion and is con­struct­ing anoth­er three,” said Ms Jael John­son, spokesper­son for the action. “To add insult to injury, it now pro­pos­es to burn wood from our pre­cious native forests as fuel and count this as renew­able ener­gy.”

“The WA pub­lic has a right to renew­able ener­gy. Here we have an abun­dance of wind, solar and wave ener­gy. CETO, a wave ener­gy com­pa­ny, has cho­sen to be a part of this renew­able rev­o­lu­tion. Grif­fin also has the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join West­ern Aus­tralian busi­ness­es com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able solu­tions. There is no place for coal-fired pow­er sta­tion or native for­est log­ging in a sus­tain­able WA,” said Ms John­son.

Grif­fin Ener­gy recent­ly won a ten­der from the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) to buy between 250,000 and 400,000 tonnes of native for­est logs a year.

Our native forests pro­vide the WA com­mu­ni­ty with clean air and water, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and homes for unique WA plants and wildlife. Native Forests also store huge amounts of car­bon. After log­ging and burn­ing, the car­bon is released into the atmos­phere. Glob­al­ly, defor­esta­tion and log­ging con­tribute about 27% of all cli­mate change-caus­ing green­house gas­es.

“Research in the east­ern states shows that if native forests are left undis­turbed, they can play a vital role in stor­ing car­bon and con­tribut­ing to a cli­mate change solu­tion.

“Instead of pro­tect­ing them for their vital role in reduc­ing cli­mate change, Forestry Min­is­ter Ter­ry Red­man pro­pos­es to allow Grif­fin to burn native for­est logs, there­by releas­ing mas­sive amounts of GHG and accel­er­at­ing run-away cli­mate change. This is an atro­cious dis­tor­tion of a sys­tem that should be lead­ing us towards a zero-car­bon econ­o­my, not fur­ther away from it.

“The peo­ple of WA will have to pay for Griffin’s reck­less cor­po­rate behav­iour long after its share­hold­ers are done lin­ing their pock­ets. So we will con­tin­ue to dis­rupt the oper­a­tions of organ­i­sa­tions like Grif­fin for as long as they con­tin­ue to dis­play such cor­po­rate reck­less­ness and short-sight­ed­ness.

“At the same time we sup­port the calls from the Aus­tralian Man­u­fac­tur­ers Work­ers Union and the Aus­tralian Coun­cil of Trade Unions for a just tran­si­tion to a renew­able soci­ety that leaves no work­er or com­mu­ni­ty behind,” said Ms John­son.

MEDIA CONTACTS ON SITE
Ms Jael John­son: Mbl: 0438 856 981
Ms Emma McIn­tyre: Mbl: 0415 258 301