Wednesday 4 June 2008

Underdogs fight back


Well… Last night… We hit back.

After listening to Cockburn Cement push their environmental improvement plan (and they need to improve because they couldn’t have got much worse), Water Corp tell us how wonderful it is to pump industrial waste into the ocean off Rockingham and the government give us their interpretation of how many chances in a million we have of being blown up by Kwinana Industry it was our turn…

“Up until Saturday – many of us who are unfortunate enough to live alongside Kwinana Industry were kept awake by Industry noise for 3 or 4 nights. Eventually we ourselves were left to track down the source of the noise, we did track it down to Wesfarmers LPG and called in the DEC. Wesfarmers LPG have been commissioning a new plant and purging and/or venting to two flares, the noise at times was nearly twice the legal limit. Also great plumes of black smoke (pollution) were also reported – which were tracked down to NewGen commissioning a new power station. In my view Kwinana Industry seems that busy trying to force down our throats how green and clean they are – which they are not, they have lost the ability to keep the community informed of major events that have the ability to impact on the community and in this case did indeed impact on the health of some of those affected. In the last week we had two major developments start up and the community were not informed”.

Glancing around the room while speaking, industry reps shifting comfortable in their seats – journalists heads down scribbling madly into their note books.

I continued “On behalf of those affected like myself I wish to put forward a motion that the community has lost faith in Kwinana Industry keeping us openly and honestly informed and safe”.

The motion was seconded.

Well the spin doctors came out of the wordwork like termites exposed. The perceived attempts to discredit me started… like Steve does not represent the whole Kwinana community etc.

In the end the motion was not accepted therefore not voted on. I am totally mystified as to why.

We did however get the message across and from the reaction I suspect we hit the required spot.

At the close of the meeting as the spin doctors made a beeline for the journalists, I suspect it maybe a case of how can we convince the media to water this down?

And for now dear readers, unless anything important pops up I will try and give you a rest from out noise issue, so please stay tuned.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog” that matters most. Erin Brockovich

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