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Water - National News - January 2008 |
Australian Capital Territory; New South Wales; Northern Territory; Queensland; South Australia; Tasmania; Victoria; Western Australia
Water National 24/01/08 Garrett to face fresh dredge case The Age Port Phillip Jan 08; Melbourne, Jan 08
Water State 23/01/08 Peter Garrett tips a bonanza for bay after dredging Nick Higginbottom and Ellen Whinnett, The Herald Sun Port Phillip Jan 08; Melbourne, Jan 08
22/01/08 Platypus swam with the dinosaurs By Chee Chee Leung, science reporter, The Age
22/01/08 Flight spies on Japan whaling Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age
Water OS
21/01/08 Greenpeace maintains pressure on whale fleet Andrew Darby and Orietta Guerrera, The Age AntarcticaWater OS 15/01/08 Japan eyes resuming commercial whaling AAP Antarctica Australia Japan ; International Whaling Commission
15/01/08 Bay dredge gets go-ahead Clay Lucas, The Age with AAP
11/01/08 Shooters migrating south for duck hunt Mathew Murphy, The Age Tasmania; Victoria;
11/01/08 Former minister joins anti-whaling crusade ABC News Online
11/01/08 Follow that whale, protest ship 'told' Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age our highlighting
10/01/08 Dredge to raise bay level: Garrett Clay Lucas, Env Reporter The Age
09/01/08 Water State 09/01/08 Channel deepening delay to affect bay beaches Clay Lucas, The Age
09/01/08 Water State 09/01/08 Oil survey may disturb blue whales Andrew Darby, The Age South West Jan 08
The fossil puts the platypus 'well into the age of the dinosaurs'.
By Chee Chee Leung, science reporter, The Age
January 22, 2008 - 8:00AM
Fossil jaws from an ancient platypus found in Victoria have revealed the Australian mammal group is tens of millions of years older than previously thought.
Molecular studies had suggested that the platypus diverged from the echidna - the only other monotreme, or egg-laying mammal - somewhere between 17 and 80 million years ago.
But a new analysis of three jawbone specimens dug up at Flat Rocks near Inverloch has shown the platypus family dates back at least 112 million years. High-resolution scans showed the creature known as Teinolophos had a large internal canal along its jaw - just like the modern platypus.
Platypuses have a large canal to carry nerve fibres from their bills to their brains.
John Long, of Museum Victoria, said the similarity in the jaws showed the Flat Rocks fossils belonged to a member of the modern platypus family - and not just a distant ancestor. "It puts them well into the age of dinosaurs . . . whereas the commonly held view is that mammals didn't really take off until after the dinosaurs had become extinct," he said.
"It also confirms beyond any doubt that the platypus family is the oldest living group of mammals on the planet."
The fossil jaws, estimated to be between 112.5 and 121 million years old, were found on research digs over the past decade led by Museum Victoria's Tom Rich and Monash University's Patricia Vickers-Rich. The findings are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age
January 22, 2008
THE Australian Government has flown its first surveillance mission as forces step up around the Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic.
The flight, by an extended range Airbus, together with the appearance of a Japanese fishing boat said to be shadowing Sea Shepherd, raise spying over the "scientific" whaling program to a new level.
There are also signs that with the rising international attention, the program is increasingly being questioned at home in Tokyo.
The Airbus A-319, fitted out with surveillance and imaging equipment, is, with the customs patrol ship Oceanic Viking, part of the Rudd Government's program to gather evidence for potential international legal action against the whaling.
The aircraft performed well when it ran a six-hour low-level search pattern out of Hobart on Sunday, locating two foreign fishing vessels in Antarctic high seas, a spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Minister, Bob Debus, said yesterday.
Bad weather prevented it from flying into its original search area, but depending on the weather conditions and the activities of the whaling fleet, the A-319 would fly another mission again soon, the spokeswoman said.
The fleet and its pursuers battened down against bad weather at the weekend in waters south-west of Australia. But in moderating conditions yesterday the re-supply ship Oriental Bluebird was steaming alongside the factory ship Nisshin Maru, according to Greenpeace.
Greenpeace International's whales campaign co-ordinator, Sara Holden, said their vessel Esperanza was still following Nisshin Maru and in turn it was being tailed by Yushin Maru No.2, the catcher ship at the centre of last week's detention crisis involving Sea Shepherd activists.
Sea Shepherd's leader, Paul Watson, said his vessel, the Steve Irwin, had been followed for three days by a Japanese stern trawler that he believed was reporting the Irwin's movements.
"The Fukuyoshi Maru No.68 is a large drag trawler," Captain Watson said. "It's a fast ship and can easily stay out of reach of the Steve Irwin. The Sea Shepherd helicopter has flown over the ship and it is not equipped with any fishing gear that can be seen. There is evidence of electronic surveillance gear."
Captain Watson said after losing touch with the fleet on Friday he had been given their co-ordinate and was at least two days' sailing away.
Clay Lucas, The Age with AAP
January 15, 2008 - 2:39PM
The controversial plan to deepen Melbourne's shipping channels will go ahead after the opponents of the project lost a legal challenge in the Federal Court.
Justice Peter Heerey dismissed an application by opponents Blue Wedges to overturn Environment Minister Peter Garrett's decision to approve the project.
Channel deepening will involve dredging 23 million cubic metres of sand, clay and contaminated silt from Melbourne's shpping channels.
The project will now commence on February 1.
Justice Heerey said he accepted there were differences in the project since it was first referred to the government in 2002, but added the action of dredging was still the same.
"The approval decision is lawful. The law does not require the process to be started all over again,'' he said.
The coalition argued in a one-day hearing last week that Mr Garrett's approval — made just before Christmas — was invalid because the project had changed dramatically since it was first referred to the federal government in 2002.
Blue Wedges says the $969 million project initially proposed dredging to a maximum depth of two metres.
The depth is now "unspecified'' and is expected to blow out to more than five metres.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said last week that the $1 billion channel-dredging project, which he approved last month, will cause a permanent rise in Port Phillip Bay's high tides.
Enlarging the entrance to the bay will allow more water to pour in and out of the Heads.
Dredging opponents argue the project has changed dramatically since it was first referred to the federal environment minister in 2002, because shipping channels would now be deepened by up to five metres - not the 1.5 metres to two metres first proposed.
Michael Morehead, the lawyer for the dredging's opponents, the Blue Wedges Coalition, argued that approving the project on an old report was like receiving a planning permit for a one-storey house but building a three-storey mansion.
The original application failed to mention "dredging", and the plan to dump 2 million cubic metres of toxic silt within the bay, Mr Morehead said.
with AAP
Mathew Murphy, The Age
January 11, 2008
HUNDREDS of duck hunters are expected to head for Tasmania this season. The Tasmanian Government is ignoring bans set by the mainland governments, and has declared a full 12-week duck-hunting season.
Victorian shooters are tipped to make up most of those making the trip south in March, with the State Government last month cancelling this year's season due to low waterbird numbers.
It leaves Tasmania as the only state to allow the practice this year, with Victoria and South Australia issuing a moratorium for 2008, and duck hunting permanently banned in the other states.
Tasmania's Minister for Primary Industries and Water, David Llewellyn, conceded that duck numbers were in decline, but said if monitoring found that more waterbirds were being hunted than in past years the season would finish early.
"While surveys of some species show a decline in numbers since 2002, this decline has been from historically high levels to levels still equal to or above those seen through most of the 1980s and '90s," he said.
Rod Drew, chief executive of Field and Game Australia, said he expected Victorians to lead the 300 or so hunters across Bass Strait for the start of the season on March 8. "The ducks will look after themselves," he said. "There is no suggestion that the hunting pressure can impact on the species and, in Tasmania's case, you have a far lower number of duck hunters."
Graeme Hamilton, chief executive of Birds Australia, slammed the Tasmanian decision, saying evidence showed that bird numbers were falling away because of the drought.
"We don't think recreational duck shooting should be allowed anywhere in Australia," he said.
"If in any year there was a conservation impact it would be this year, with duck numbers near record lows, and we need several years for the duck numbers to recover properly."
Laurie Levy, the campaign director of the Coalition Against Duck Shooting, said the Federal Government should ban duck hunting across Australia.
"It makes sense to hand control of waterbirds to the Federal Government, because birds are nomadic," he said. "So, it would appear, are shooters. In 2003 we wound up battling more Victorian shooters. They ought to stay at home this time."
Posted Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:03am AEDT
Updated Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:10am AEDT
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200705/r147654_521000.jpghttp://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200705/r147654_521000.jpg ABC News Online
Joining the fight: Ian Campbell has joined the radical Sea Shepherd group (ABC)
Former federal environment minister Ian Campbell has become the latest recruit in the anti-whaling campaign, joining the radical environment group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
The former Liberal senator has told ABC's NewsRadio he wants to use his experience as an environment minister in the Howard Government to help Sea Shepherd block Japanese whaling ships.
But Mr Campbell admits he was once a critic of the group and its founder Paul Watson.
"I was worried about his tactics because Paul was making comments to the effect that he was prepared to lay his life on the line and I just don't think anyone should ever go to sea and seek to hurt someone else," he said.
"But I'm convinced that using really aggressive tactics, you can pursue aggressive tactics.
"I like his aggression. I like his passion. I like his dedication. I don't want to temper that."
Mr Watson says Mr Campbell is a "true friend" of the whales and a "welcome addition" to the advisory board.
Tags:
environment, endangered-and-protected-species, government-and-politics , federal-government, australia
Andrew Darby, Hobart, The Age our highlighting
THE search for the Japanese whaling fleet was yesterday focusing on waters far south-west of Australia, with the help of both human intelligence and whale karma.
Although the Southern Ocean location of the the six-ship fleet has not been exposed by environmentalists several weeks into the search, the co-ordinates are believed to be known to the Federal Government.
Its surveillance ship, Oceanic Viking, was about a week's steaming away from the Antarctic whaling grounds last night. Sea Shepherd's ship, the Steve Irwin, and Greenpeace's Esperanza have been separately picking their way through thousands of kilometres of icy waters in their race to be first to find the whalers. The Japanese were recently whaling near the western extremity of the Australian Antarctic Territory, more than 4000 kilometres south-west of Perth, a Federal Government source said.Greenpeace declined to comment on Esperanza's position, but the western location confirmed Sea Shepherd president Paul Watson's belief that the whalers were likely to be working north of Prydz Bay, in the Co-operation Sea, where he was headed. He also said a whale showed him the way. "Yesterday a large humpback whale surfaced beside the Steve Irwin and seven times raised his long flipper into the air, and seven times brought it down pointing in a direction due west, as if to say 'go this way'."
Captain Watson said his fellow Greenpeace founder Bob Hunter used to rely on such karma. "I thought to myself, what would Bob Hunter have thought of that? And I knew the answer. 'Follow the whale, Paul, follow the whale'."
A former Howard government environment minister, Ian Campbell, has become an adviser to Sea Shepherd — and believes Japan would have given the co-ordinates to Australia. "If we're friends with Japan, why wouldn't they?" said Mr Campbell, now a company director. "They should tell the world where they are."
Mr Campbell was a vocal opponent of the whalers, and did much to build the anti-whaling bloc of countries in the International Whaling Commission. "I don't think (Japan's) whaling tacticians are the most gifted international players," Mr Campbell said. "And I know their foreign service just hates this issue. It's just an embarrassment to them."
Mr Campbell said he agreed to join a Sea Shepherd Advisory Board, which includes naturalist Terri Irwin and actor Pierce Brosnan, as a commitment to conservation.
"Paul told me that he would do absolutely nothing to endanger life or break the laws of the sea, and I think you can stay within the rules and be very aggressive just the same."
Clay Lucas, Env Reporter The Age
January 10, 2008 - 2:04PM
Federal environment minister Peter Garrett has admitted for the first time that the $1 billion Port Phillip Bay channel deepening project that he approved last month will cause a permanent rise in water levels.
Dredging opponents the Blue Wedges Coalition are in the Federal Court today, in a bid to overturn Mr Garrett's decision to allow the Port of Melbourne Corporation's channel deepening project to proceed.
They say Mr Garrett relied on a smaller 2002 application to deepen the channel in his decision, rather than the far larger 2007 project approved by the Victorian State Government.
The project will see 23 million cubic metres of sand, silt and rock ripped from Port Phillip Bay and dumped in two spoil grounds in the middle of the bay. At least 2 million cubic metres of it will be heavily contaminated silt from the Yarra River mouth.
In his argument for why the channel deepening project should proceed, Mr Garrett noted for the first time publicly dredging would rise sea levels in the bay.
"The proposed works area result in a permanent rise in high-tide levels from the increased channel depths," a submission by lawyers on behalf of Mr Garrett reads.
Tides could rise by two centimetres at Williamstown, and be up to 3.5 centimetres lower at Queenscliff, as a result of the channel deepening project, Planning Minister Justin Madden has said.
If the entrance to Port Phillip Bay disintegrates in a "worst-case scenario", tides will go three metres further inland at Swan Bay, and up to 25 metres further inland at the Spit Nature Conservation Reserve in Werribee.
Fourteen per cent more water may flush into and out of the bay at every tide once the entrance to Port Phillip Bay has been deepened, and the bay will become saltier as a result of dredging.
The heads will take a minimum of five years, and could take up to 30 years, to recover from damage caused by to the dredging.
Federal Court Justice Peter Heerey this morning to refused an application from Michael Morehead, lawyer for the Blue Wedge Coalition, to delay proceedings until January 18, when Mr Garrett is expected to release the full details of his decision.
The $969 million dredging project, due to begin on February 1, aims to open Melbourne's port to a new generation of container ships.
But the Port of Melbourne Corporation has conceded it could be years before larger ships begin snaking their way through a deeper channel. The dredge plan hinges on the promise of massive efficiency gains through increased ship size rather than more trade.
Port of Melbourne Corporation chief executive Stephen Bradford has said current trade volumes were too small to warrant larger vessels.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts container numbers will be the same whether or not the project goes ahead. Either way, trade is expected to jump from 2.1 million containers in 2010 to 7.1 million by 2035.
Opponents of the project believe it will be an environmental disaster that will cause toxic algal blooms that could poison swimmers and contaminate seafood, and destroy unique marine life.
The Federal Court case is expected to finish this afternoon.
Clay Lucas, The Age our highlighting
January 9, 2008
BEACHES in Port Phillip Bay will be affected by the $1 billion plan to deepen Melbourne's shipping channels until at least the summer of 2010, under a revised completion date for the controversial project.
The Port of Melbourne Corporation, which wants to remove 23 million cubic metres of sand, clay and contaminated silt from Melbourne's shipping channels so bigger ships can enter the port, has stretched its original completion date for the project from mid-2009 to December 31 next year.
With the project already delayed a month on the Port of Melbourne Corporation's most recent timetable, there is little chance the project will be completed before 2010.
A schedule for dredging released by the port corporation in June listed August 2009 as the completion date.
Since then, with alterations to the dredging technology to be used by Dutch dredge Royal Boskalis (which has a confidential financial "alliance" with the port corporation), the completion date has been set back.
Port of Melbourne Corporation spokesman Greg Russo said the project was expected to begin next month.
"The Port of Melbourne Corporation's expectation is to start dredging on 1 February and to have the dredging project completed by 31 December 2009," Mr Russo said.
Asked to supply a detailed schedule for the amended dredging plan, Mr Russo would say only that a "full environment management plan will be a public document and must be approved before dredging can commence".
He said the plan would be released in the near future.
News of the extended dredging schedule comes as the first of five massive ships destined for Melbourne to begin the project begins its journey to Port Phillip Bay.
The Black Marlin, a transport vessel that will be used to unload barges that will carry uncontaminated spoil from the project to dumping grounds in the middle of the bay, was scheduled to have arrived in Melbourne yesterday. Because of poor weather, it left the West Australian port of Dampier yesterday.
The Blue Wedges Coalition, long-time opponents of the plan to deepen Melbourne's shipping channels, will tomorrow go to the Federal Court to challenge the right of federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett to approve the project.
The group says the Port of Melbourne Corporation's original 2002 plans — which were what Mr Garrett approved on December 20 — differ markedly from the final dredging plan put forward by the corporation in 2007.
Andrew Darby, The Age
January 9, 2008
SEISMIC exploration for oil and gas is about to start at the peak season in Australia's best-known blue whale feeding ground, despite the concern of scientists.
The survey by oil and gas exploration and production company Woodside was approved by the federal Environment Department late last year after two attempts.
It means a stretch of ocean off Port Campbell in western Victoria, where blue whales are known to feed in high summer, will be subjected to weeks of airgun explosions.
The echoes, caught by hydrophones trailed at the surface, provide vital information on geology under the seabed.
But the noise can harm marine wildlife if it is too close, and there is evidence that blue whales avoid this area, potentially missing out on swarms of shrimp-like krill as food.
Woodside's spokesman, Tony Johnson, said the company took precautions to deal with any blue whales near the survey vessel, including proposing to lower the power of the explosions if any whales were seen within three kilometres of the ship.
He said there were greater safety risks in heavier weather if the survey was shifted to April, as scientists suggested.
It was also possible the company might then run into the annual winter migration of southern right whales to the same waters.
Disclosure of the approval for the seismic work comes with the Rudd Government already under pressure over whale protection. Its Antarctic surveillance mission for Japanese whalers is delayed, and showpiece non-lethal research cancelled for logistical reasons.
Woodside initially sought approval for the 320-square-kilometre survey in early October, then withdrew after the department declared it a controlled action — a rare move for any seismic survey, which would have demanded much closer government scrutiny.
The company resubmitted the proposal three days after the federal election, having narrowed the timing and changed some of the operating conditions.
The survey was then approved on Christmas Eve, according to documents on the department's website.
A spokeswoman for Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the department's decision was based on a policy that employed the world's most conservative measures to ensure protection from seismic surveys.
She said that although the probability of encountering whales was low, the department required Woodside to use strict mitigation measures and to carry a government inspector on board to ensure there was no significant impact on blue whales.
"Decisions made by the department under authority delegated by the minister are not reviewable," she said.
Blue whales, which were ravaged in 20th-century commercial whaling, are drawn to waters off the west coast of Victoria at this time of the year, sometimes by the dozen. Upwelling deep ocean currents there encourage the krill and mean a seasonal feast.
Scientists led by Peter Gill discovered the phenomenon in 1998. "Because of the potential for disturbance to the feeding whales, our advice to Woodside and the Government was that the seismic should not take place during the peak blue whale season," Dr Gill said yesterday.