January 2020
Sure it has been a long time, and so much has happened, but the disaster which is Portsea beach is the problem that just keeps on giving.
January 2016
New expert opinion is that the expensive taxpayer funded sand bag and rock walls at Portsea beach are not the best solution after all!
December 2015
Victoria University research has implicated the dredging and dumping of over 3 million tonnes of toxic and contaminated sludge in the Bay as a cause of high levels of toxins found in the blood of Bay Penguins.
June 2015
We are still keeping an eye on the Bay, and all the argy bargy about where to put another container port. More on that later. For now we want to tell you about massive erosion that has occured in the south of the Bay.
November 16th 2014
A bunch of expert consultants is either having a joke, or have produced a very provocative pre-election Blue Wedgie ....
November 2nd 2014
Plans for a massive container port at Hastings is economic irrationalism. Read on!
September 2014
We need your help to save Westernport Bay from the dinosuars who want massive port expansion including brown coal exports from LaTrobe Valley to China and India being part of the business case for the project.
April 2014
Judging by recent media reports it seems the Libs and Labs have descended into an unedifying blue about where they think a massive new port should be.
April 2014
Victorian National Parks Association is running its second Westernport focused seminar in Hastings on Tuesday evening 15th April.
Entitled ‘Westernport: A Bay on the brink’, the free seminar will focus on the potential impacts that port expansion could have on the internationally significant ecosystem of Westernport, its seagrass, salt marsh and mangrove communities and the species that rely on them.
December 2013/January 2014
Summer is here and we are heading for the coast. We really do hope you enjoy your time at the beach, but as you watch ships pass by, often close by, take note of the plume of filthy smoke they belch out and consider this piece published in Crikey in 2009.
December 2013
Documents that Blue Wedges obtained last year using Freedom of Information revealed that the former Brumby government had plans for Hastings which included coal exports in the business case. Given the Napthine government is using project costs and projected trade volumes for an expanded Hastings that are almost identical to the Brumby plan, it is pretty likely that coal is still on the agenda.
September 2013
Consultants Asia-Pacific Applied Science Associates found a high probability that spilt oil would spread widely and quickly across Western Port's globally recognised waters.
August 2013
Blue Wedges members recently met with the Minister for Ports, David Hodgett.
It’s seven years since community groups started raising the alarm about the then Brumby government’s proposed rail and road corridors to the Port of Hastings. Now The Age is all over it.
April 2013
Yesterday Dr. Napthine was all over Hastings.
March 2013
4th December 2012
PoMC can have its $100 million Environmental bond back when we get our beach back!
June 2012
It was strenuously argued by the PoMC, the state government, the shipping industry and business groups such as VECCI, that the whole raison d’être of the project was to allow unfettered access for ships of up to 14 metres draught on all states of the tide at The Rip in all but the most extreme metocean conditions. If we couldn’t do that, Melbourne would “wither on the vine” said Mr. Brumby.
April 2012
As we’ve known since we first looked at export/import data back in 2004, PoM’s biggest export is empty containers, and has been for many years.
March 2012
Premier Baillieu might be considering selling the Port of Melbourne for a mere $2.4 billion.
March 2012
Despite the dubious need for those deeper channels, PoMC proudly announced the successful completion of maintenance dredging on March 8th
January 2012
Anecdotally, since Christmas we’ve had numerous comments that the water condition in the Bay this year is the worst it has been for many years.
January 2012
As the sun set on the Brumby regime back in 2010, Rosebud Pier beach also copped a futile but expensive “makeover”
December 2011
On a cold and windy October night some hardy souls attended the Port of Melbourne Corporation’s Rosebud information session on the Corporation’s plans for the next 10 years.
March 4th 2011. We were amazed this week to hear Tim Pallas (previously the Minister for Ports and now Opposition spokesperson for Ports) is now sounding the alarm on how costly it might be to develop the Port of Hastings.
Reports of dramatic and sudden changes to beaches and coastline are rolling in....Here's some of the recent pics we have been sent.
Last week Mr. Brumby and PoMC called a press conference to talk up the unimportant, irrelevant departure of the Queen of the Netherlands
One cm increase in water levels can mean up to 1 metre inundation on flat land!
The lack of baby anchovies in Port Phillip Bay could threaten the second largest tourist attraction for international visitors in Australia -- Victoria's multi million dollar Phillip Island Penguin Parade.
So far, Boskalis and PoMC have admitted oil spills and rockslides, and with dredging set to continue for the rest of 2009, there's no reason to be complacent.
The recent
Recent opinion[1] that so far dredging has had no impacts is plain wrong. The Bay does look wonderful at present, especially in the South – precisely because there has been no dredging for several months.
So here’s some damage that has already occurred:
The news is bad for the PoMC and its channel deepening fiasco. Container throughput is spiralling downwards and imported car numbers have dropped a massive 33% .
Sad isn’t it that the PoMC can spend perhaps $millions on jaunty advertising, but not a few thousand dollars to test Yarra sediments for radionuclides.
Since July, Blue Wedges has called for Yarra sediments to be tested for radionuclides. Why? Because from the 1940s to the 1960s CSIRO pioneered the processing of Uranium in Lorimer St. Fishermen's
......Possibly more in line with what scientists NOT employed by the PoMC have been warning since the first EES in 2004 we suspect!
CSIRO pioneered uranium processing at 506 Lorimer Street Fishermens Bend (next to the Yarra) where, from the 1940s to 1960s, experimentation on various radioactive materials was conducted.
Radionuclides omission summary
506 Lorimer Report 1990
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) yesterday wrote to Queen Beatrix of the
Revelations that radioactive waste may have been entering the Yarra River for decades has prompted some of Victoria’s major environment groups* to call for Premier Brumby and the EPA to immediately halt Yarra dredging until an investigation has been completed.
Dead fish floating in the Yarra near Newport is apparently not sufficient to stop PoMC dredging up toxins …so we are wondering if Mr. Brumby could tell just what needs to happen before he would call a stop to Yarra dredging.
On Tuesday 24th June, the Queen of the Netherlands ugly little sister the Cornelis Zanen (CoZa) was moving toxins from the Yarra to the dump site in the middle of the Bay. The next day it was cleaning itself down south.
Mr. Brumby, and his mate Planning Minister Madden, the state “developers”, are making people as mad as hell!
Help stop the largest ever toxic waste facility in Victoria. Click here for further details and email to Upper House MPs
City residents have joined the dots. They realise that more port expansion, more roads, more tunnels, more congestion and loss of public open space is all connected. With Brumby at the helm it’s spaghetti junction everywhere. More roads, more trucks, more port expansion in Melbourne and Hastings….. Just more, more, more.
Join our friends on Sunday 25th May to protest the land based impacts of continued expansion.
Although Mr. Brumby might be just about to kick back, sip some champagne and slap a few backs, he should think again. People everywhere are still amazed at his brazen bullying demeanour while imposing his pet poisonous project – channel deepening - onto the community. And many are happy to show their anger and displeasure.
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Time marches on, but don’t be fooled: there is a lot happening, both in the public arena and behind the scenes.
The banks of the Yarra saw an array of protestors, both human and marine, waiting to meet the the Cornelis Zanen on Friday, the day after May Day. This third dredge vessel will stir up and remove the toxic sediments. Passions were stirred likewise, and questions raised about what exactly is hidden and untested in these highly contaminated areas.
A Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Public Administration is currently having a close look at the PoMC’s business case for channel deepening, and the PoMC’s contractual arrangements with Boskalis
News update. No decision yet from Federal Court, The Noisy Queen, and turbidity not quite how the PoMC reports it.
Sydney Harbour is closed to fishing due to cancer causing chemicals in fish after dredging. The same could happen here warns Sydney doctor
Greens MP Sue Pennicuik has achieved the impossible- a chance to see the contract between PoMC and Boskalis
Dead dolphins on beaches of Port Phillip Bay or, worse, floating belly up into the city, could serve to end Victoria’s channel deepening project faster than any legal action taken by opponents of the project, writes Crickey.com's Lionel Elmore.
TELL GARRETT HE IS WRONG.
The Port of Melbourne Corporation wants to start dredging on 1st February, and has vessels due from 8th January. It doesn't think it should wait to hear what the Federal Court has to say!
The Bay needs you now. Here’s what to do.
Environment Minister Garrett can decide to undertake his own inquiry into the channel deepening project. Click here for a cut and paste letter to Mr. Garrett.
What a great debate! The Greens and Liberal MP Bruce Atkinson 'gave it their all' in the debate on the 'Port Services Amendment Bill' held on Thursday evening 22 November
Ex-Treasury Economist Richard McEncroe points out that VECCI is placing unjustifiable demands on our new Premier.
PoMC's tactic of presenting last minute data on long-term damage at The Entrance caused by erosion, scour and build up of mounds of mobile material in the Great Ship Channel did not work. Inquiry chair Dr. Allan Hawke has invited further submissions on this critical issue for shipping safety and changes to the Bay's ecosystems. Please take the opportunity to respond - Read on!
Maribyrnong Truck Action Group reminds us that Channel Deepening effects spill over into the suburbs too.
Channel deepening economic justifications are pretty leaky according to ex Treasury Economist
The stricken bulk carrier Pasha, foundering metres from the coast of Newcastle's Nobby's Beach brings back memories of MSC Napoli foundering off
On the same day that
Memories of Basil Fawlty flogging his poor old
Alarm bells rang when we saw the recently announced appointees to the SEES Panel Hearing, but now we've had time to look at the Panel's Terms of Reference we are even more alarmed!
A SERIES of sea calamities -- including a triple fatality -- involving the company chosen to deepen shipping channels in Port Phillip Bay and the
Economist Kenneth Davidson observes that quality of life and environmental sustainability are now the major contributors to economic growth. Whether a city is situated on a port or not now has little to do with its competitiveness. The value is added where the containers are packed and unpacked, observes Mr. Davidson. We certainly aren't going to move away just because a few containers might arrive by train rather than by ship are we - Read on!
The Age Fashion writer Maggie Alderson tells it like it is when she says "Great obscene bales of more crapola.......endless covoys of container ships toting it around the world".
See her article here
Sunday Age's March 4th article 'Ships, not planes, new warming risk' confirms that the shipping industry is having more adverse impacts on the planet than they might care to admit or pay for. As Blue Wedges has long been advocating, it is time the real costs of the shipping industry’s polluting habits is factored into the cost-benefit analysis for the channel deepening project – an analysis which to date has been traditional, simplistic and rudimentary in its approach.
Claims that
Yes - PoMC has decided that it has had enough of its stakeholder committee!
Government appointed Public Stakeholder Advisory Committee (PSAC) chairperson Terry Laidler recently advised committee members that the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) saw no further benefits in retaining PSAC. With the Supplementary Environmental Effects Statement (S-EES) due for release in early 2007, Terry reasoned that once the S-EES was released, PoMC will not be able to alter the content of the document in response to any concerns raised by the committee, so there would be little use in retaining the services of the Port's Stakeholder Committee.
The following letter from a number of Melbourne and
The Blue Wedges exhibition of Posters from a State-wide schools art competition ‘Wild About
The contentious Port Phillip Bay channel deepening project will receive further economic analysis by accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). The PoMC's Stakeholder Advisory committee (PSAC) was recently addressed by Mr. James Kelly Associate Director Economics of PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Kelly outlined the Terms of Reference for the study, which PWC and Department of Treasury and Finance will undertake on direct brief from Premier Bracks and Treasurer Brumby. Blue Wedges President, Jenny Warfe outlines her ongoing concerns about the inadequacy of that economic analysis to Mr. Kelly.
Today sees the launch of the new Blue Wedges web site against the deepening of Melbourne's Port Phillip, Yarra River and The RIP in Victoria, Australia
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live in a hotter Melbourne where the coastline of Port Phillip Bay was nothing like it is today and our freshwater systems have undergone significant changes you should not miss the opportunity to hear two world renowned climate and water experts, Dr. Kathleen McInnes and Dr. Graham Harris talk at the Brighton Town Hall on Thursday 15th June at 7.30 PM.
Blue Wedges spokesperson Jenny Warfe today welcomed the advice from infrastructure expert Peter Fitzgerald that the case for channel deepening is grossly overstated. “Mr. Fitzgerald’s analysis of the Drewry Report confirms our long held stance that the project is not justifiable on environmental or economic grounds” she said.
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