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| From Drop Box |
PLUG THE PIPE
…….. and protect the future
of country communities.
of country communities.
In a time of Drought, Fire or
Flooding Rains the
North South Pipeline adds
Misery to Ordinary Victorians.
Whilst the entire Goulburn Catchment is suffering major flooding, Melbourne Water continues to order releases of hundreds of millions of litres per day from Lake Eildon to supply the North-South Pipeline. The water for the North South Pipeline must flow from Lake Eildon 75 kilometres along the Goulburn River until it reaches the North South Pipeline pumps at Yea.
The Victorian Government seems oblivious to the fact that this water amounting to extra billions of litres every few days pouring down the Goulburn River is adding to the flooding in the Upper Catchment, where the full impacts are still to occur in the coming days.
For the Melbourne Water to blithely continue to add this water volume to floodwaters is totally arrogant, unnecessary and smacks of the usual disregard they have for our rural communities.
In exactly the same manner, Melbourne Wate, during the construction of the pipeline continued to work on every Total Fire Ban day right up to Black Saturday. They did so with tractors, slashers, bulldozers, chainsaws and hot welding equipment in extremely dry grasslands and initially with only a mandatory 9 litre knapsack of water, despite pleas from landowners not to enter their properties as it was too dangerous to work.
The North South Pipeline threatened the bush with fire at the time of its construction, has taken water from our inland rivers in the time of desperate shortage and now amplifies the worst floods in 15 years. Is it any wonder Victorians hate it?
And what for?
To satisfy an arrogant government intent on pursuing an election agenda causing stress, trauma and difficulty to ordinary Victorians.
Jan Beer - Plug The Pipe Spokesperson
Please Visit Plug the Pipe
That just proves they don't know what they are doing about the pipeline, but we knew that already. If by the end of this season Lake Hume is empty again I will be totally disgusted.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I had an idea in the middle of the night last night. Governments look at the government through the wrong end of the telescope/binoculars. There are two choices about distance with the t & bs: up close and personal or long distance and far, far away. My idea is that governments like to look at us through the long distance, far, far away. Our politicians don't like us to get too close (yes, there are exceptions and we know the categories of those). There is so much wisdom in the community, if only they would recognise it. Of course, there can be many voices and govts can't be paralysed. They have to make decisions - and, like the rest of us, they won't be right all the time. But I think we have to reframe our political discourse to be more inclusive. To do this we will have to implement some new techniques - but I like to think that it is worth a go.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am thinking is that something has changed from the generation of my parents who are 70 odd to now. Still I am very much into the government as it was then which I was taught was technically socialist because of the public utilities, then they seemed to run well. They used the excuse of money to get rid of them but possibly they have had money since, but thankfully use some, as they promised to maintain the powerlines. Maybe having more men on the ground doing manual work meant then they had more eyes and ears? The population shift more to cities hasn't helped apparently outnumbered 30 million to 2 or some other shocking number. I was at my periodontal appointment and asked a question. It didn't go down too well, I am wondering if our politician all live in the same place and have a similar attitude, though maybe it wasn't that bad. I was sorry I asked it.
ReplyDeleteIn the 70s there was a stage two planned for Lake William Hovell, all that lovely water that can't be kept, but I haven't read up on the environmental reasons for not doing that.
I do think you have a point about manual work and more eyes and ears. I have the view that this was the problem with the pink batt debacle. There were warnings about compliance issues but it appears they were ignored. My feeling is that higher up the food chain there might have been the view that any old hand person can throw a pink batt in a roof. (This proved to certainly not be the case!) Down the food chain there was probably a bureaucrat who was on sleeping or speaking terms with a tradie who knew about pink batt installation. Up the food chain where finally decisions were made they did not have a clue. We have to keep finding ways of insert ordinary citizens into policy issues - and have them given credence!
ReplyDelete