Street Talk

The EPA might be finally starting to take our claims about noise seriously if articles at the Standard and the ABC are any indication. But it's still talk on the EPA's behalf and we can only wonder how long these compliance plans will actually take to implement (my family and other concerned residents met with the EPA in February 2012 and nothing yet, not one second of noise monitoring, has happened).

Talk in some respects however can be good. Over the past few months we have received  emails and phone calls and street talk from locals who appear increasingly disaffected by Origin Energy (and other gas plants) and the gasification of the south-west coast. And that is from what is happening onshore.

Origin has plans to explore more of the Southern Ocean for gas reserves. One can only wonder if they will ever stop to consider the fisherman from Apollo Bay, Port Campbell and Warrnambool who will be again affected by their planned seismic booms. Doubtless the fisher folk will, if they haven't already, join an increasingly long line of disaffected south-west coast residents.

Silent Regulators: Loud Gas Plants

The Origin gas plant near Port Campbell and the Great Ocean Road

There are massive amounts of industrial droning noise coming from the gas plants near the Great Ocean Road, Port Campbell and the Twelve Apostles - we believe it is far beyond the 35db permitted by law. For my family the noise makes it far too loud to go outside. As ever, on clear and windless blue sky days we are prisoners in our home. 

 We understand the EPA met with Andrew Mason at the Corangamite Shire some weeks ago and we believe one of our suggestions - about delegating a resident (given the EPA do not have the staff to regulate) to conduct random noise testing was going to be tabled at the meeting.

Not surprisingly we have heard from no one about the suggestion or the details of the meeting. The  bureaucrats are good at silence. If only they could apply such skills to the Twelve Apostles gas plants

Gas Developments Answer for Asian Tourism

I'm off to Asia soon. Going on a tour of some of its great sites, to ramble about its islands, its temples and its history.  There'll be visits to Phuket in Thailand, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Hue in Vietnam.

Of course I'll also be making time to visit all the gas plants, or at the very least all the industrial zones, that have been set up around some of Asia's most renowned tourism assets.

Oh hang on a minute I've got that wrong. Unlike what has happened near the 12 Apostles on Victoria's Great Ocean Road there are no gas plants or monstrous industrialism near Angkor Wat, a place that much like the Twelve Apostles is recognised the world over.

Perhaps valuable tourism assets in Asia have been protected from industry. Or maybe the custodians are clueless to how the glow of gas flares can add to a tourist asset, fill the night sky with light.  Just how wrong can these people get? Don't they want more visitors to their parts of the world?

Best I pass out the Corangamite Shire's contact details to some Asian bureaucrats.
The Corangamite Shire watched over the industrial development near a part of the Great Ocean Road and should be able to set the Cambodians, the Thais and the Vietnamese straight.