BUSHFIRES AND URBAN WATER SUPPLIES

As the bushfires continue to burn around the state there is an increasing realisation that another very likely impact of these widespread fires is contamination of urban water supplies. This happened  to Canberra’s water supply  following its devastating  2003 bushfires and has happened  in other places where dam catchments have been severely burnt.

It happened recently to Tenterfield’s water supply.  Before the bushfires its water supply had been under stress because the dam level had dropped in October to about 18% and residents had been advised to boil their water.  A storm late in November topped up the dam but damaged silt traps designed to prevent sediment entering the dam.  Massive amounts of ash and debris from the recent bushfires were swept into the dam.

According to Stuart Khan, a water security expert from the University of NSW, a combination of events have created Tenterfield’s problem.

“First of all you’ve got a drought which means the catchment is very dry,” he said.   “It also means the reservoir level is very low and there’s no opportunity to dilute new flows that come in.”

“Fire followed by heavy rain will wash ash into waterways.  There’s a lot more erosion because you don’t have the trees and roots holding the ground together.  Having a reservoir full of soil and sediment and ash is in itself a real problem because it makes water treatment processes more difficult.”

Water quality impacts can include deoxygenation and the growth of cynobacteria, which can be toxic.

He also pointed out that a lot of towns in NSW “don’t have the resilience in their drinking water supplies to get through these sorts of scenarios.”

There are now concerns for Sydney’s water supply because of fires burning in the Lake Burragorang catchment.  This lake sits behind Warragamba Dam and accounts for 80% of Sydney’s water supplies.

In relation to Sydney’s situation Stuart Khan  is concerned about the impact of heavy rain in the catchment . He said, “The best case is we get gentle rain for weeks and months that allows some gentle regrowth.”

            Leonie Blain

his article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on December 23,  2019

A FIERY FUTURE - PART 2

In "A Fiery Future - Part 1"  conservationist Dailan Pugh described the impact of the current bushfires on rainforest, with particular reference to Terania Creek. Below is a continuation of that post which was  published in the CVCC blog on December 4.

As exemplified by Koalas, numerous species have been hit hard. The fires have burnt out 23% of the high quality Koala habitat identified in north-east NSW, including a third of that on public lands. Only small refugia have survived within the burnt areas, and the Koalas are under immense stress in these.

Though the situation is more dire than indicated as much of the highest quality habitat has been degraded by intensive logging, and most of the remaining core populations have now been hit hard by the fires.

The Busby's Flat and Myall Creek fires have burnt out most of the regionally significant Koala populations of the Richmond Lowlands, the Bees Nest and Liberation Trail fires burnt out the most of the nationally significant Koala populations on the Dorrigo plateau, and the Crestwood Drive fire burnt out the major refuge left south of Port Macquarie.

While the rednecks are quick to blame national parks for fires, parks only represent 36% of the burnt area, with private lands 44%, and most of the ignition is likely from humans. Given that logging dries forests, creates fuel and increases the likelihood of canopy fires it is the bigger threat.

There is a belief that we need to burn forests more frequently to reduce fire threat, though it only takes 2-4 years for leaf litter to build up, and in extreme events prescribed burning does little to stop the spread of fire. It is telling that 151,000 ha of the area burnt this year has been burnt in either wildfires or prescribed burns in the past 3 years, with 73,000 ha burnt in the previous 12 months.

As well as affecting rainforest and old growth trees, too frequent burning adversely affects many seed producing shrubs, along with refuges and resources for a variety of fauna.

The protection and expansion of forests are essential to take up and store the carbon we emit if we are to have any chance of limiting the worst of climate heating. As we continue to slash and burn our forests we are increasing their flammability and turning a vital carbon sink into another source of emissions.

We need to undertake a rigorous review of how we manage forests, manipulate fire and protect property if we are to adapt to this brave new world we are creating. Business as usual is an unfolding catastrophe.

   -  Dailan Pugh 
       November 2019.

A FIERY FUTURE - PART 1

Hundreds of ancient Brush Box and other rainforest trees, many over a thousand years old, have been felled in the head of Terania Creek, their bases eaten out by fire. While the loggers were stopped 40 years ago, this time nothing could stop the assault by human-induced climate change.

In early November fire swept into the basin at the head of Terania Creek, consuming ferns, desiccating shrubs and cooking thousands of Bangalow Palms. Towards the valley floor the remnant moisture slowed the fire's assault, though the fire ate at the tree's bases, toppling immense trees that smashed through the rainforest canopy, spreading the devastation. Three weeks later fallen veterans were still smouldering and fire trickled through the leaf litter deep in the rainforest.

The last time fire burnt into the heart of this rainforest was around 1,100 years ago. Now we have so fundamentally altered the climate that a regime change is occurring and such events will happen with increasing frequency.

From August to November this year the Rural Fire Service (RFS) mapped 1.7 million hectares of north-east NSW, from the Hunter River to the Queensland border and west onto the tablelands, as being burnt in wildfires. So far 958,000 ha of public lands and 752,000 of private lands have been affected.

The scale is already massive, encompassing 20% of the land area, and 32% of our remnant native vegetation, and at the time of writing the fires are expected to continue for months.

The fires are coming on top of a drought, compounding each other's impacts.

The bush is so dry that fire is burning through the moist areas, the gullies and rainforests, that we could rely upon in the past to stop fire's spread. These are also the refugia that so many of our species depend upon in hard times. The RFS mapping encompasses 120,000 ha of rainforests, while not all this will have burnt, as shown by Terania Creek a lot has.

The big old trees are irreplaceable, the eucalypts may live for 300-500 years, or more, and the Brush Box at Terania Creek have been aged at over 1,340 years old. The older they get the more essential nesting/denning hollows, nectar, browse and other resources they provide for a multitude of species.

Most old trees have been lost through clearing, ringbarking and logging. Now the death of the survivors is being hastened by drought, and in huge numbers as successive fires eat away at their bases. They are also routinely cut down and bulldozed to control fires.

Over half our remnant old growth forest has been burnt this year. Hundreds of thousands of the oldest remaining trees have perished. Their loss is tragic.

Dailan Pugh
November, 2019 

THE FIRE EMERGENCY IN NSW

Lives lost, hundreds of homes destroyed, hundreds of thousands of hectares of native bushland reduced to ashes, and millions of native animals burned alive. That is the story as bush fires continue raging out of control along Australia's eastern seaboard.

These unstoppable fires, beginning two months ago in winter, are escalating towards an uncertain crescendo of catastrophic proportions. The tireless, heroic efforts of fire-fighters, mostly volunteers, have been magnificent, but they have been totally overwhelmed by the enormity of the task, with no end in sight.

As the planet warms, the situation will only worsen. Anyone claiming these fires are not related to climate change is delusional. Incredibly, many of our politicians are exactly that, content to ram their heads deeper into the sand with every successive climate-related disaster.

Over a decade ago, British economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, undertook an economic review of action on climate change, reporting that the high cost of acting would be dwarfed by the cost of inaction.

Professor Ross Garnaut similarly warned the Rudd Labor Government, subsequently reporting that Australia’s climate change position“is weak only because of an extraordinary failure of leadership”, pointing out that neither major political party has committed itself to policies that can get anywhere near their already weak emissions reduction targets.

Last week, retired fire chief Greg Mullins, warned the Federal Government that fire-fighters are entering uncharted territory and that the government needs to urgently address the situation. His plea for the Prime Minister to meet with 23 former senior emergency figures to discuss their concerns about climate change and “the missing capacity to fight fires in a new era” was fobbed off onto a junior minister.

"This is really dangerous," Mr Mullins said: "People are at risk, we need a game changer in how we deal with these catastrophes because they're going to get worse and worse.”

The escalating cost of the current catastrophe will certainly bear out Nicholas Stern's claim about the cost of government inaction! Unfortunately, that cost will be borne by all of us, some paying for it with their lives.

            - John Edwards

Burnt bushland near Coutts Crossing, south of Grafton.  Photo: John Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on November 18,  2019

BIRD BATH PHOTOS

A selection of bird photos taken  at "Jacana", 

Eric and Margaret Wheelers' property outside Grafton

Photos by Eric Wheeler

Double-barred finches

 

Noisy friarbird

Silvereye

 

 

THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF BIODIVERSITY

When debating weighty matters of state, our political elite rate environmental matters way behind national security, economic growth and getting re-elected. Meanwhile, the business community views biodiversity as a resource to be plundered to the extent that laws allow, or beyond if they feel they can get away with it.

Most of the remainder, it seems, have little understanding of nature and biodiversity, focusing instead on mortgages, energy costs, and the pressures of just surviving in this man-made “rat race”. 

It isn't as though the importance of biodiversity isn't known.  It's simply that those natural values come a distant last, behind social and economic considerations.

The critical importance of biodiversity is summed up well in the national biodiversity plan, “Australia’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy, 2010–2030”, which states: “Conserving biodiversity is an essential part of safeguarding the biological life support systems on Earth. All living creatures, including humans, depend on these life support systems for the necessities of life”.

One would think that statement alone would grab the attention of policy makers, but it seems it hasn't. If, on the other hand, policy makers have received and understood that message, their subsequent actions allowing, and in some instances encouraging the ongoing destruction of biodiversity, can only be described as criminally negligent.

That federal biodiversity strategy accurately sums up the current situation, with “biodiversity continues to decline”. We are now halfway through the period during which that strategy was supposed to turn things around.

So how are we doing?

Not too well. An accelerating number of listed threatened species, a Murray – Darling River system reduced to a series of toxic puddles, courtesy of taxpayer funded water theft, increased CO2 emissions, and a world heritage reef dying before our eyes.

We have a government whose leader brings a lump of coal into parliament telling the world that we've nothing to fear from it, and both major political parties espousing an increase in mining and burning of coal. All this despite acknowledging the scientific evidence that the subsequent emissions will lead to catastrophic global heating. This is insanity!

            - John Edwards

 This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on October 28,  2019

NSW EMISSIONS BILL 'RETROGRADE' AND 'PURE POLITICS'

ENVIRONMENTAL  DEFENDERS  OFFICE  NSW

Media Release

The New South Wales Government has introduced legislation to prevent the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from Australian coal burned overseas. The move came just days after the Government launched a review of the Independent Planning Commission, following a sustained advertising and lobbying campaign by the NSW Minerals Council.

25 October 2019: The Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Territorial Limits) Bill 2019 was introduced into Parliament on Thursday.

EDO CEO David Morris greeted Wednesday’s announcement of the legislative package as indicating “an unwillingness to grapple with the serious local impacts from Australian coal burned overseas.”

“A day after the Minerals Council gave evidence to ICAC that they were lobbying privately and publicly for changes to the law, the Government has capitulated, without regard for current or future generations.

“It doesn’t matter where Australian coal is burned, it’s Australian communities that are and will increasingly feel the brunt of a changing climate. The Government’s decision artificially carves out climate impacts from Australian coal on local communities – that is an absurd decision.

“In 2019, as the rest of the world rapidly phases out fossil fuels, we should be urgently planning for a just transition for coal and gas communities and a safe climate for our children. Instead, the NSW Government wants to make it law to ignore Australia’s most significant contribution to the problem - emissions from exports. It would appear that this Government’s only plan for addressing the climate crisis is to turn a blind eye.

“The most significant climate judgment in this nation’s history was based on scientific evidence. The Rocky Hill decision made it clear – emissions from Australian coal are not something that happen ‘over there’, they have a deep and lasting impact here at home. That’s why we have to take responsibility for those emissions, and it’s appropriate our laws reflect that. A decision to remove that requirement would be a retrograde step and inconsistent with a science-based response to managing climate change.

“The greatest trick the Minerals Council has played is to hoodwink us into thinking that our export of fossil fuels has no effect locally. That is wrong. It is not based in science.

“As Professor Will Steffen said in the Rocky Hill case, “it is one climate system”. Because of that, burning NSW coal overseas impacts communities here at home. It defies logic that in a time of severe drought and bushfires, a political party claiming to be for and from the bush would legislate against consideration of climate impacts from Australian coal on our communities. Perhaps they don’t think the impacts of climate change on NSW communities matter. Perhaps they don’t accept the science. In either case, it is an indictment on the Government.

“The beauty of the Rocky Hill decision was its basis in science and fact. The appalling thing about the Government’s decision is that it’s based on pure politics and self interest.”