Live Exports heading to Kwinana

As reported in the West Australian:

Live sheep trade may move to Kwinana

BEN HARVEY STATE POLITICAL EDITOR, The West Australian

June 23, 2011, 5:16 am

Transport Minister Troy Buswell wants to shift the live sheep trade from Fremantle to Kwinana in a move that would be a win for voters in the electorates of Premier Colin Barnett and independent MP Adele Carles but a big loss for the Labor electorates surrounding the industrial hub.

The trade was not compatible with the future of the inner harbour of Fremantle Port and should be moved south, Mr Buswell told a meeting of business people in Fremantle yesterday.

 "I don't think it will be compatible in the long run," he said.

Mr Buswell said there was a disused jetty at Kwinana which had once been used to load sheep.

The trade could be moved there but it would require dredging and the development of infrastructure.

Previous talk about moving the live sheep trade out of Fremantle has focused on switching the trade to a new private port which a consortium led by building magnate Len Buckeridge wants to build at James Point.

Labor MLA for Rockingham Mark McGowan said people in the Kwinana area already had their fair share of industry which benefited the State.

"Mr Buswell needs to come clean on the involvement of Adele Carles in his decision," he said.

"Once again Mr Buswell is showing he hasn't learnt to disassociate his personal life from his public one."

Ms Carles is the MP for Fremantle. The northern side of Fremantle Port is part of Mr Barnett's Cottesloe electorate.

For a more detailed coverage and discussion you can request to join our No Livestock Export through Kwinana facebook page here.

Plans to increase legal noise pollution limits in Kwinana

 The State Government plans to increase the legal limits of Kwinana industry noise pollution by 10 decibels.

Below is our submission on this proposal:

 

   Click on images to enlarge

Here are some previous blogs on the illegal noise levels in Kwinana:

How well did you sleep?

When will it end? 

A message for Wesfarmers

 The best of the worst

 It's name and shame time - Wesfarmers

 Kwinana Town Council covers up for big industry

In bed with Corporate Industry

 

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You will pay for trying to protect your community

A few months ago we, as a not for profit community group in Kwinana, held a presentation, with special guest US professor Paul Connett on the dangers of incineration, at the Kwinana Requatic Centre. 

 The requatic centre is a community owned building so a few days before the presentation I wrote the the Town of Kwinana (TOK) (our local council) CEO and asked for the hire fees to be wavered or subsidised.

The usual procedure is that the Town gives Kwinana Community Groups a function venue once a month free of charge. We have not had a free venue in over a year, becuase I use my house for most meetings and during the warmer months we have used parks or other public places. 

I recieved a response from the TOK CEO saying the venue fees would be reviewed after the meeting. I thought this odd at the time and sent emails to some of our people saying that this seemed a case of if council like what we say they might reduce or cut fees, but if not, which was extremely likely seeing our council has been keen to force an incinerator on the local community for many years.

There are currently no household waste incinerators in all of Australia, because communities have rejected incineration.

 So it seems community groups in Kwinana only get support or assistance from our Town Council if we tow the line and don't dare speak out against the views of the council.

We recieved the below invoice from the Town of Kwinana and have since under protest paid this bill. We have paid the price for trying to protect our community from its own council.

The council didn't even have the decency to let us know that our request for the waving/subsidy of  function venue hire fees had been rejected.

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Liberal Party push for Kwinana incinerator confirmed.

This article from thewest.com confirms the WA Liberals involvement in the push for an incinerator in Kwinana: 

ANITA McINNES, Sound Telegraph

March 10, 2011

Premier explores waste energy

Premier Colin Barnett and South Metropolitan MLC Phil Edman have visited incinerator plants in Tokyo while in Japan to mark Western Australia's 30th anniversary with sister state Hyogo.

After touring one of Moltoni Energy's reference sites in Tokyo, Mr Edman said he was encouraging Kwinana Town Council to adopt waste-to-energy technologies to help combat the State's increasing landfill issues.

Mr Edman said he was impressed by the technology, which takes residential and other wastes and converts it to low-cost renewable energy.

He said the process uses a mass-combustion process that safely processes waste using extremely high-temperatures, and the heat used created steam to drive turbines to generate electricity.

``This cutting-edge technology not only creates clean, renewable energy but the process completely converts all the waste received with the residual ash by-products into bricks and tiles for road construction (so) nothing goes back into landfill,'' he said.

He said discussions were already under way for Moltoni Energy to build an incinerator in Kwinana - the first waste-to-energy plant of its type in Australia.

``The plant would see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a significant reduction in landfill and many local jobs created during and after construction,'' he said.

``The Moltoni Energy plant will enable councils to generate additional income from the resale of energy while supporting families, by avoiding the costs and levies associated with landfill sites and to contest the Commonwealth's proposed carbon tax which has caused concern among many financially-struggling families.'''

Alliance for a Clean Environment president Jane Bremmer said it was disappointing that Mr Barnett and Mr Edman had visited incinerators overseas when the Liberal Party had turned down invitations to attend a presentation by the world's leading waste expert Paul Connett when he was in Perth last month.

The main reason for a Kwinana Incinerator

This article appeared in our local media, in which the Town of Kwinana and Kwinana Industry make some rather strange claims and admissions.

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Kwinana Council and Kwinana Industry claim our group did not stop a previous incinerator proposal in Kwinana which we fought for 4 years. Just why do they think that no other council would sign contracts to supply waste for this incinerator proposal?

The Mayor of Kwinana then claims "nearly an hour of the presentation time was hijacked by both Ms Bremmer and Mr Hesse". Wait a minute, it was our meeting,

we are entitled to speak at our own meeting. Or is it a case of if anyone has a differing view than the the Town of Kwinana or our Mayor then they should not be heard? I hope not because that sounds like a dictatorship to me.

Interestingly Kwinana Industry made some alarming admissions confirming as we suspected that hazardous/toxic wastes from industry would also be used. This is the reason Kwinana Industry want an incinerator in Kwinana; to use ratepayers funds to provide a way of hiding their toxic wastes.

"Hide the evidence of dirty and unsustainable industries. Incinerators allow dirty industries to get rid of their toxic waste and hide the impacts of their practices. These industries depend on incineration to fuel our continued use of this system of unsustainable production and consumption". 

Here is the article on our response to Town of Kwinana and Kwinana Industry claims:

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This is a letter of response from ACE:

Claims made by KIC director Chris Oughton and Kwinana Town Council’s Mayor, Carol Adams, in the Sound Telegraphs recent article 2/3/11, reveals their ignorance about incinerator technologies and shows that they did not understand the presentation by leading world expert on waste Dr Paul Connett at a recent public forum organised by the Alliance for a Clean Environment.

To suggest that our organisation could “hijack” their own forum which ACE provided to inform the community about the health, environment and other financial risks associated with incinerator technology, when the KIC and ToK have not, is a childish remark designed to divide and conquer host communities who have legitimate rights to access information about what might affect their health and their children’s future. To imply that providing community right to know is somehow a terrorist act, is simply gutter politics. ACE was inundated with many congratulations and offers of support from numerous people who attended the Kwinana forum and also the other successful forums that were held in Midland and at the Conservation Council of WA. Successful presentations were also made to the EPA, the DEC and the Waste Authority of WA and to a number of State parliamentarians during Dr Connett’s 10 day speaking tour hosted by ACE in Feb.

Even though there will always be those sections of government and community who do not want to be reminded of the regulatory failures that have happened in this state or of the comparatively poor environmental and health standards we have, it is no less of an interest to the community, especially those that will be hosting such toxic facilities.

Clearly Chris Oughton and Carol Adams, did not understand the science related to combustion and nano-particles as presented by Dr Connett. To suggest that toxic coal fly ash would be a suitable fuel source for MSW incinerators reveals this ignorance and displays a disturbing lack of regard for human health protection in their own community, which is already disproportionately affected by industrial pollution. Combustion processes create dangerous nano-particles that can pass directly into human blood, organs and brain yet are not regulated for environmental or human health protection in Australia.

Fly ash is the concentrated toxic waste gathered from combustion processes. Coal fly ash has been associated with radioactivity (see attached) and will contain hazardous mercury and dioxin wastes. To use this waste as a fuel source immediately makes any such proposal hazardous. Clearly this incinerator proposal is about providing waste disposal options for other toxic industries, such as the coal industry and has nothing to do with addressing the problems of municipal waste in WA, including our appalling recycling rates. Incinerator technologies destroy valuable resources that could be recycled and reused and does not create enough energy to be viable, economically or environmentally.

The KIC and ToK need to come clean on their plans to establish a hazardous waste incinerator in Kwinana. Passing off a hazardous waste incinerator as anything less, is misleading and offensive to the community and is not an honest way of pursuing the necessary government approvals. ACE will be watching closely and ensuring the truth about this proposal is made available to the public and that toxic waste incinerators do not establish here in WA.

WA citizens deserve better waste management than these sort of expensive, out dated, end of pipe, solutions that are known to leave toxic legacies for centuries. While Chris Oughton and Carol Adam’s comments seem nasty and adversarial towards legitimate public interest ngo’s, it is however not surprising that such tactics are being employed at a local government level in a town that is heavily dominated by industry representation.

It is beyond time that the Town of Kwinana and Kwinana Industry came clean with this community.

Other related blog posts:


Kwinana Health Statistics
 

The truth about incineration

Why so many communities reject waste incineration

In the Ghetto

Learn the truth about Incineration

Kwinana Council playing games with its community

Why do Kwinana Industry want MSW Incineration? ***Update: We answer why!

Incineration is not recycling.

Consultation what consultation?

Clean Incineration is a dirty lie.
Why incineration is a very bad idea in the Twenty First Century.

Incinerators: Myths versus Facts

What the US EPA says about incineration (scroll down to municipal solid waste).


Is Kwinana becoming a dictatorship?
 

Something in the air - Kwinana pollution

Kwinana Health Statistics

Kwinana warned of incinerator 'crime'

Hello all, I have been otherwise occupied of late, so am playing catch up now. Thank you all for staying tuned.

The visit by US incineration expert Dr Paul Connett went well, but it seems those that will make the decisions, once again didn't and probably just won't get the message, so the battle will continue.

Dr Connett was brought to WA by ACE WA in association with the Kwinana Watchdog Group supported by the Kwinana Progress Association.

Here is a local media article on the Kwinana Presentation by Dr. Paul Connett:

click picture to enlarge

Other related blog posts:

Kwinana Health Statistics

The truth about incineration

Why so many communities reject waste incineration

In the Ghetto

Learn the truth about Incineration

Kwinana Council playing games with its community

Why do Kwinana Industry want MSW Incineration? ***Update: We answer why!

Incineration is not recycling.

Consultation what consultation?

Clean Incineration is a dirty lie.

Why incineration is a very bad idea in the Twenty First Century.

Incinerators: Myths versus Facts

What the US EPA says about incineration (scroll down to municipal solid waste).

Is Kwinana becoming a dictatorship?

Something in the air - Kwinana pollution

Kwinana Health Statistics