Is Hobart’s water poisoned?
Is Launceston’s water poisoned?
The revelations in last night’s Australian Story about Dr Alison Bleaney and the toxic Georges River which feeds St Helens – the town where she is a GP – will have horrified Australia.
But the news that Tasmania’s waterways have been poisoned by the forestry industry should not, however, come as news to Tasmanians.
For more than a decade this has been the issue the Tasmanian Labor Government and the forestry industry has tried to keep quiet.
Every major community in Tasmania draws its water from catchments which include extensive plantations.
Hobart and Launceston are not exempt.
Hobart’s water source includes the large plantations in the Lower Florentine, Styx and Upper Derwent.
Silted. Poisoned?: The Tamar River
Logging in the north-east and subsequent huge plantation forestry establishment there have silted the Tamar River and surely rendered Launceston’s water equally as suspect as water sourced from the Georges River.
Tasmanians should be frightened.
And the questions should be answered – if not by this government – whose silence and bullying on the subject shames us all – then by the next.
Dr Alison Bleaney has courageously campaigned for years for a healthy environment. Time and again she has questioned the forestry industry’s extraordinary reliance on chemicals to sustain, particularly, the plantation industry. Much of her concern and details of her campaign – and the derision she has copped – has been documented in the past seven years on Tasmanian Times. Her courage is why we announced her as Tasmanian Times’ inaugural Tasmanian of the Year: HERE
Download The Original Scammell Report:
HERE: SPRAYED: Environmental Problems, Georges Bay, Tasmania
And Here are just a couple of links documenting Alison Bleaney’s fight, firstly from Tasmanian Times Jurassic, August 2004, which has a link to the original Scammell Report:
Stop the spraying
By Dr ALISON BLEANEY, St HELENS MARINE FARMERS, Dr MARCUS SCAMMELL
Response to DPIWE Review of the Scammell Report
HERE: Stop the Spraying
And,
HERE: Come Clean
HERE: Water and Chemicals
HERE: Georges River pesticide spray
And, by Dr Marcus Scammell:
HERE: Coming clean: What the tests reveal
And, here, courtesy of Mark Duffett, is the Review of the Scammell Report – August 2004 – Aerial Spraying in the George River Catchment
Contents include: Executive summary; (Part 1 – Review by Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment) Oyster mortalities in Georges Bay; Helicopter crash, Chemicals used in forestry operations in the George River Catchment; Devil facial tumours; Regulation of aerial spraying and use of agricultural chemicals in Tasmania; Monitoring of pesticides and river health; recommendations (Part 2 – Review by Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources) Overview of plantation forestry in the George River catchment; examination of claims in the Scammell Report.
HERE: Rewview of the Scammell Report
The dozens of warning articles Dr Bleaney has posted just since 2005 are available by putting “Dr Alison Bleaney” into TT search, TOP RIGHT
And,
HERE: CRIES FROM THE HEART: Earlier articles by Brenda Rosser, who has lived with plantation forestry for many years:
http://www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz/jurassic/brendawater.html
http://www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz/jurassic/brendalevels.html
Dave’s view: HERE
