George River Water Quality Panel Bias: Claim

It was reported in the Examiner Newspaper on 21 April that there are now doubts over E.nitens toxins being the cause of water quality in the George River.

The Premier’s appointed George River Water Quality Panel is currently meeting community members and taking evidence. It is due to hand an interim report to the you, the Premier, by the end of May.

Jim Reid is a panel member and a plant scientist associated with forestry research centres at the University of Tasmania. He is reported to have said that the link between toxins in the water and E.nitens ‘was unlikely’. He went on to say that ‘it’s unlikely that anything its [E.nitens] producing is different from the native vegetation’.

Reid made these statements to the media after the panel met with Dr Alison Bleaney at St Helens on 20 April. He did not make these statements in the presence of Dr Bleaney.

These statements by Reid clearly demonstrate a bias in the panel membership.

Jim Reid has not waited for the results of independent laboratory tests but has shown that his mind is already made up about the outcome well before the inquiry has heard all the evidence, and also well before the findings of the report are collated and assessed.

The independence of the Water Quality Panel has been a matter of public question and concern since its inception. Now there is clear proof that at least one panel member has pre-judged the issue and already believes that the toxins from E.niten plantations are not a problem. Such a belief flies in the face of independent laboratory tests that indicate E.nitens are producing toxins that are harmful to marine life and human cells. The data from our laboratories do not allow us to form an alternative hypothesis.

Reid was also reported in the Examiner as saying that E.nitens ‘is simply another eucalypt’. This is not true and by denying the long and well-funded programs for forest tree improvements undertaken by Forestry Tasmanian and Gunns, Reid is at best being disingenuous.

It was reported in the Winter 09 edition of Regenerate, a newsletter of Gunns, that the gains from E.nitens breeding program had improved their growth by over 20% in comparison with native forest E.nitens.

Plantation E.nitens are not the same trees as native forest E.nitens and Jim Reid knows that but chooses to ignore it. By taking this closed-mind, oppositional stance Reid has put in jeopardy the independence of the panel and has damaged the government’s objective of a transparent and accountable process.

We have no confidence in the Panel’s independence and so ask you, the Premier, to dismiss Jim Reid and replace him with an open-minded, independent person whose focus is drinking water and water quality. The Panel needs to be truly independent in its investigation of the issues relating to the quality of the water of the George River and other similar rivers in the State.

Signed:

Dr Andrew Lohrey, Former Minister for Forests,

Mr Robert Belcher, Managing Director Sustainable Agricultural Communities Australia Ltd.
28 April 2010

Statement by the George River Water Quality Panel

The George River Water Quality Panel have requested I make the following statement on their behalf in response to concerns raised from comments reported in the Examiner Newspaper on 21 April by panel member, Distinguished Professor Jim Reid.

“The responsibility of the Panel is to critically and scientifically examine issues arising from the Australian Story program in light of all the available information and then provide advice in light of supportable evidence and opinion established through a robust scientific process.

All panel members come to the process with their own knowledge and experience and are respected both nationally as well as internationally as experts in their field.

“The University of Tasmania’s Distinguished Professor Reid is recognised for his work in plant science, in particular plant biochemistry and eucalypt biology, and this is why he was invited to participate.

Professor Reid, along with the other four expert members on the panel, will scientifically consider all available, relevant information regarding the issues raised in the Australian Story.

The Panel’s findings, when published, will be accompanied by supporting documentation such that the conclusion(s) of the Panel will be transparent and available for scrutiny in accordance with accepted scientific process.‘

John Ramsay

Convener

George River Water Quality Panel

George River Water Quality Panel Bias

In a letter to the Premier, the Convenor of the George River Water Quality Panel, John Ramsay has dismissed our concern that some members of the panel have already made up their minds on E.niten toxins.

In relation to Professor Jim Reid, John Ramsay says, ‘Professor Reid, along with the other four expert members on the panel, will scientifically consider all available, relevant information.’

It is difficult, if not impossible for an ordinary individual, let alone a professor to investigate controversial research findings in a detached manner when these findings have the potential to undermine his or her own status as an expert in the field. This is exactly the position Professor Reid finds himself in as a panel member.

As a Director of the CRC for Forestry at the University of Tasmania it can be argued that Jim Reid has a professional investment in the outcome of the panel’s findings. In the past the Centre’s research has been conducted on E.niten plantations with little or no consideration given to the environment or the ramifications for public health.

For this reason we have no confidence in the ability of the Professor Reid to be an independent member of the panel.

Professor Reid has already demonstrated a desire to protect his professional turf as one of the authors of ‘Talking Point’ in the Mercury Newspaper on 25th February that suggested to readers there was nothing to worry about in regard to E.nitens. He followed this up with a similar statement in the Examiner Newspaper on the 21st April.

If the panel now finds that the environmental and health issues of E.niten plantations are of great concern then Professor Reid will be subject to embarrassment given the direction of his own prior research into forestry practices.

For this reason we again ask that Jim Reid by replaced on the George River Water Quality Panel with a genuinely independent assessor whose primary focus is on drinking water and water quality.

Signed:

Dr Andrew Lohrey, Former Minister for Forests,
Mr Robert Belcher, Managing Director Sustainable Agricultural Communities Australia Ltd.