I have my ear to the ground fairly well but it took 4 weeks for me to hear about the Santos crude oil spill in the vicinity of Cooper Creek.
But in the meantime I’ve heard all about, ad nauseam; Labor in-fighting and electioneering, celebrity rubbish, yet more asylum seeker debates and endless conversations about whether gay marriage should be legalised.
While a precious piece of our environment, which will be around eons after all of the above issues have been and gone, suffers a catastrophe.
Perhaps the standard of Australian journalism hasn’t actually fallen; but the advent of the internet and more recently social media, has highlighted all the stories the media are/were overlooking and accentuated the obsession with a ridiculously narrow range of topics, which are rehashed over and over and over. Either way; the Australian public deserves more accuracy, a broader range of stories, and less obsession with relative trivia.
Contrary to what Senator Waters said in this Radio National interview, the current Queensland LNP is absolutely in no way responsible for the situating of oil and gas wells amongst the pristine channels of the Cooper Creek. This occurred during the many years the Labor Government was in power. What a load of absolute bull about the area being protected by the Wild Rivers legislation! Political point scoring at it’s lowest. These oil and gas wells didn’t arrive in the last five minutes! Wild River Protection did diddly squat bugger-all! The fact that 3 weeks later no employee of the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment had even bothered to visit the site of the Eromanga/Cooper Basin oil spill, is just a continuation of all Australian governments (State and Federal) lack of concern for remote areas (social as well as environmental). Senator Waters need look no further than the Lady Annie mine tailings dam spill for a great example of the Queensland Labor Government’s absolute disregard for outback Australia. It is truly a case of “out of sight and out of mind” for politicians of all persuasions, other than the tiny few who have been voted in to represent these vast, sparsely populated areas in parliament.
By contrast; the Great Barrier Reef, rainforest regions and coastal areas generally, receive by far the lion’s share of attention with regard to environmental protection. While politicians eye off the remotest, most fragile parts of Australia for nuclear waste dumps.
Hey we can’t let a few thousand head of starving cattle into a handful of specific national parks, that ran cattle for more than 100 years (and until relatively recently); and were considered in such good environmental shape they were taken out of private ownership; but it’s fine for Santos to let oil spill from one of their wells into the environment for a whole week, uncapped. And both the government and the media are happy to ignore it.
How big is this spill? Santos says nearly a quarter of a million litres of oil. Excuse my scepticism, but when the fox is left in charge of the chookhouse, is there a single fox on the planet that would accurately count & report the number of chooks eaten? Yet we have Radio National – our publicly funded national broadcaster – repeating this figure as if it’s the immutable truth; and a Santos spokesperson saying the leak was plugged “quickly” (5 days is quick? I’d hate to see slow…) The public comment on the Mining Australia website sums it up.
And where is the leaked oil and contaminated soil being moved to; where is this ‘bio remediation site’? Down a gully amongst the silent little stony hills and red sand dunes? Who knows – because not a single independent observer appears to have been out there to look! Oh great, the government department in charge of managing one of the most pristine parts of Australia, is using a French satellite to verify information provided by Santos!
Here’s a few facts, which the media appear incapable of determining themselves:
- Santos have oil and gas wells situated inbetween Cooper Creek Channels. In average to large floods, these channels join up. In other words, the wells in these locations go right under water. What person in their right mind thinks this is an acceptable way to manage one of the most pristine parts of Australia? The inner urban areas of our largest capital cities are the most degraded natural environments in Australia. Yet I couldn’t see a company being allowed to site an oil well below the high tide mark beside the Parramatta River, Brisbane River, or the Yarra, can you?
- A few years ago Santos had an employee guide that made for very interesting reading. Included in it was a statement advising employees to as much as possible site work away from the view of roads, so the public did not see evidence of the mine work. The Santos Arid Zone Field & Environmental Handbook is alarming reading – think about the environment they’re describing, all the natural features at risk; and the “potential” (actual) problems. The grid of shotlines – running straight over watercourses and up and over fragile hills – have scarred this arid landscape permanently. These man-made lines will disappear when the climate changes and it turns back into rainforest, or this part of the earths crust disappears down the Marianna Trench. And the evaporation ponds? Risk to the water quality and quantity in the Great Artesian Basin by so many bores, and to such a deep level?
- The Cooper/Eromanga Basin is Australia’s largest onshore oil & gas field; involving thousands of kilometres of pipelines, millions of barrels of oil and billions of dollars. Thank you very much, says tax squandering governments, we’ll keep the cash and turn a blind eye. Ironically, income from this oil and gas field is helping to pay for the Department of Environment staff who are bolted to their Brisbane office chairs. Santos has at least one turbine helicopter and a jet or two and large airstrips – visiting from Brisbane is not like catching a spaceship to Mars!
- Last time I checked; Santos made one donation to the local community. They loaned their medic and ambulance vehicle for the annual horse sports.
- Santos has been in this region since 1962; so no one government is responsible for what has occurred, and continues to occur – each successive government has been as toothless and happy to turn a blind eye as the rest.
Shame on every “environmentalist”, safely ensconced in their cosy eastern seaboard homes, who purport to care. Shame on every single politician for allowing mining to continue pillaging Australia’s outback environment, unchecked. And most of all, shame on Australian journalists and editors whose job it is to properly investigate stories and bring them to the public attention, in order for something to be done. If you were being marked right now, you’d score a one out of ten.
Unfortunately most Australians live in our largest cities, preferring an urban environment within easy reach of fancy cafes; blind to the beauty of arid, natural landscapes. In far western Queensland I see beautiful, untouched (apart from mining desecration) landscapes; sparsely populated and little altered by white people, filled with native plants and animals; home to cattle existing in harmony with the environment, and long-term land managers who know their landscapes and climate like the back of their hands. But most are blind to this beauty; so unfortunately, they’ll only start to really care about it about the same time that hell freezes over.