Spare a thought for the comatose citizens of sunny Perth where The Swan Valley is home to the southern hemisphere’s largest brickworks at the Midland Bricks Company, as well as three other major plants at Caversham, Bellevue and Malaga and not to mention the new BGC brickworks on Airport land. Mogul, Len Buckeridge’s brickwork application for the Airport brickworks was refused by state planning Minister – a rare win for the citizens of Perth – or so one thought. Enter Yellow Cake Johnny who approved the application on Commonwealth land for Aunty Len, a good buddy to the Liberal Party.

Howard approved the Airport brickworks' construction despite the fact that the Caversham plant with comparable operational throughputs is not even required to have a pollution scrubber. The Cardup brickworks with a massive 200 000 tonne throughput is not even required to monitor any of its pollution despite the new Urban Pacific residential development within 500 metres of the site which will house thousands of new residents.

The lack of consistency between the new licences means that some brickworks can pollute a lot more than others. The pollution targets proposed are not enforceable and the timeframe for bringing in the only 3 pollution limits is overly generous.

The toxic plumes are dumping on the Swan Valley’s vineyards despite the protests from growers.

And how ironic that the new Swan Districts hospital will be built under the Bellevue Brickworks stack next to the Midland Redevelopment Authority. I guess that way people will not have to travel too far when they ‘cough up for industry’.

contd……

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Then we have the industrial chemist operating a hazardous waste plant in the suburb of Bellevue, where the poor chap couldn’t afford to clean up his act so the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) loaned him $100,000 of taxpayers’ funds.

The “clean-up” resulted in the largest chemical fire in Australian history; the loan was not repaid and the underground hazardous chemical plume has reached the Helena River which feeds into the Mundaring Weir and is a major tributary of the Swan.

Prior to Armageddon, up to three thousand 205 litre drums of chlorinated and halogenated solvents, thinners, acids, oils and unknown wastes were stacked four high and dozens deep on the site.

Banks of industrial nickel-cadmium batteries were stacked among the drums. Heavy metal compounds including numerous glass Winchester bottles of mercury were piled around the yard.

A pot distillery unit operating with superheated oil from an 'oil burner’ was at the centre of the open storage yard and was used to separate contaminants from used solvents. The treated solvents were then resold to local users. The sludge waste from the distilling unit was stored in drums on-site. “Waste Control Pty Ltd” had no capacity to treat heavy metals and many other wastes that made their way to the site.

Underground storage tanks also held thousands of litres of liquid solvent waste. In all, it is estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million litres of hazardous waste were stored on the site - no inventory kept.

Nevertheless, we are assured by the DEC that they will continue to "regulate" polluters under “Best Available Control Technology” (BACT.)

That’s reassuring particularly when under BACT, the seaside town of Esperance was poisoned by lead; 9,500 native birds dropped from the skies and the seabed samples contained lead readings of between 3600mg/kg and 29,000mg/kg.

Under Australian environmental guidelines lead levels are set between 50 mg/kg and 220 mg/kg. Elevated nickel levels of between 2200 mg/kg and 6600 mg/kg were also detected in the samples, well above guidelines of 21 mg/kg and 52 mg/kg.

A citizens' revolt? When?

Good work! Nice to see that our Governments' inaction is actually being noticed. Next have a look at the farce which is EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment). The issue is the same. Lots of talk, wonderful reports and promises. Yet, at the end of the day, the project gets approval and the EIA is buried and forgotten. May as well not have been writen in the first place. Our collective Governments' are sending us down a road to disaster and none of the elected "representatives" (I use this term loosely) are doing anything to represent those who do the voting. Rather they are busy supporting the big polluters who line their campaign funds.

Touché Darron C

Did you see page 6 of yesterday’s West Australian?:

“Environment Minister Donna Faragher approved yesterday two iron ore mining proposals by Karara Mining, a $1.8 billion joint venture between WA’s Gindalbie Metals and China’s Ansteel group.

“The move overrode an Environmental Protection Authority recommendation that mining not be permitted in the area surrounding Mungada Ridge, part of the Blue Hills Range 225km east of Geraldton, because of its unique and vulnerable ecosystem.”

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuId=77&ContentID=157935

The thumb screws have been applied to the impotent Donna Faragher by Premier, Barney Rubble. He's on the loose for at least the next three years too but oh how the corporate cowboys rejoice - “Yabba dabba doo!"