POLES APART

A minor furor has just erupted causing North Coast politicians to come out in support of the beleaguered timber industry yet again.

This time it’s over the decision by Essential Energy to replace timber power poles with more fire-resistant synthetic poles.

While the debate rages over the economic loss incurred by the industry versus the never-ending cost of replacing rotting, termite-ridden, and burned-out wooden poles, incurred by consumers, the common-sense solution of putting the lines underground, receives little support.

 The official response to calls for power lines to be relocated underground is that it’s too costly. Energy providers argue that overhead lines are easier to repair, resulting in faster power restoration after outages. This argument appeases consumers but ignores the fact that underground cables are far less prone to the most common cause of disruptions, extreme weather events. It also ignores the fact that the frequency and intensity of those extreme events, including bushfires, are increasing and will continue to increase with climate change.

One factor supporting the underground option is the routine maintenance cost of overhead lines, a figure I couldn't find. However, Essential Energy’s 2022-23 annual report revealed some eye-opening facts. They conducted over 297,000 pole inspections, 67,830 drone flights along 32,000km of powerline, with over 830,000 inspection photos taken, and presumably analysed.

As well, vegetation was removed from almost 187,000 spans of powerline, removing more than 20,000 hazard trees, with a further 9,991 spans inspected for bushfire-related vegetation maintenance.

During that same financial year 7,638 poles were replaced along with more than 15,000 wooden cross-arms.

The cost is clearly phenomenal, but despite all of that, Essential still reported 24,657 unplanned power outages during that period, placing considerable doubt over the cost-effectiveness of that maintenance program.

More than half of the ACT’s power network is underground, much of it planned when the city was founded a hundred years ago. So clearly it can be done.

 No one seriously advocates for the immediate placement of all power underground, but surely it should be considered in the planning for all new developments.

 

-        John Edwards

  Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , July 3, 2024.

NATIONAL PARKS TARGETED BY THE USUAL VESTED INTERESTS

In predictable fashion, following the twin disasters of drought and fire, the usual vested interests pop up and start agitating to be allowed into our national parks. Of course, these timber and grazing interest proposals offer to do us all a favour, claiming logging and grazing will reduce fuel, and thus make us safe from fires.

Other business enterprises must be envious. It's like the local hardware store asking to be allowed to expand into the local town hall during an economic downturn, or a second hand car dealership taking over a convenient sports field to save money on rent. After all, these are public facilities, just like national parks, the only difference being that parks bring billions of tourism and leisure dollars to the economy each year.

Completely ignored in this campaign to access national parks, is the fact that they are set up for conservation purposes, a place where flora and fauna which are threatened with extinction will have an opportunity to survive. They're not there to be cut down and smashed by huge industrial machines, or trampled and browsed by uncontrolled herds of cattle.

Overlooked is the fact that few national parks are fenced and there would be no way to control stock once let loose, or are the long-suffering taxpayers expected to cover that cost as well? Instead stock will be free to destroy threatened plants, trample up and down creek banks causing massive erosion in the process, and free do stir up mud and defecate in the pristine creeks and streams, often the source of urban drinking water.

Both these industries cause massive environmental damage in the general community. At this crucial time, when we should be doing all in our power to increase vegetation to store carbon, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, one is clear-felling forests, while the other is belching out massive amounts of methane.

Let's show common sense, keep these greedy hands off national parks, and start properly resourcing the parks service so that these priceless assets can be properly managed for the public interest, and for future generations to enjoy.

            - John Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on February 24,  2020.   

TIMBER LOBBY OPPORTUNISTS

It's amazing how vested interests can jump in and take advantage of even the worst catastrophes. Right now timber industry lobby groups are claiming to have the solution to bushfire hazard reduction - allow them to log national parks!

Of course they are careful to avoid the term logging, preferring instead to use the word “thinning”. Thinning is something that should always occur after logging takes place, but something that has been sadly neglected over the past two decades to cut costs.

The problem is that over 20 years, logging frequency in state forests has increased, as has the intensity, anything up to 80% of basal area in some places.

This heavy logging opens up canopies, lets in sunlight, heats the ground surface, and promotes a massive regrowth, particularly Wattle species, weeds, and highly flammable Blady Grass and Bracken, which results in the entire forest becoming more flammable.

There is a good example on the Summerland Way, 13 km north of Whiporie, showing the higher resilience older forests have against fire. Anyone knowing that road will recall a healthy patch of relatively large Tallowwoods and other tall Eucalypt species, growing right to the road's edge. Those passing since the recent devastating blazes will be relieved to see that forest, while burned, has retained a relatively unscathed canopy, while all around heavily logged forests have been obliterated.

Tall forests with unbroken canopies retain moisture at ground level and in the leaf litter, and they also encourage an understorey which includes fire resistant species, while the deeper shade inhibits the growth of those flammable pioneer species like Wattles and Blady Grass.

All this is in stark contrast to those heavily logged forests, including many of the national parks that were logged to within an inch of their being before they were handed over to the parks estate.

There are areas of forest that could benefit from thinning, including some of the more recently established national parks, but that work has to be carefully undertaken to minimise collateral damage, and definitely not by huge industrial logging machines. 

- John Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on January 27, 2020. 

TIMBER HARVESTING AND CARBON STORAGE

An advertisement currently played over and over on television extolls the virtues of wood for building which, despite being given some credence through its sponsorship by Planet Ark, does require clarification.

The scene is set in a forestry nursery, where the narrator stresses these seedlings soak up carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, and when eventually used to build houses, that carbon is safely stored.

This message is only partly true, and the seedlings are undoubtedly used in plantations specifically to supply our insatiable demand for timber, but not all will end up as house frames. A large percentage will be used for garden fences, out-door decking and even for paper manufacture, all of which have short life spans, and will be disposed of in land-fill or burned, releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere within just a few short decades.

If a particular plantation tree is deemed worthy of being cut for house construction, just what percentage of that tree will be stored? Well, not much as it happens, and the following figures are very generous. Less than 40% of the average plantation tree is taken to the mill, 60% comprising the stump, root system and crowns, is left behind to be burned or to rot in the ground.

As well, after reaching the mill, a surprisingly small portion of the log provides timber. At an Upper House land use inquiry in 2013, respected local mill owner, the late Spiro Notaras, explained the salvage rate for smaller logs averages about 28%. That's about a quarter of each log actually becoming lumber, and while the remaining 70-75% is not always wasted, either burned to generate heat or electricity, it's still releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

So, at best only about 10% of a tree's mass the ends up being stored in buildings.

This would seem to be one of many good arguments to stop logging native forests, but instead we are currently clear-felling them at a financial loss. Where's the logic?

      - John Edwards

 This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on August 5, 2019