Unfortunately, the construction of one LNG plant is likely to act as a
nucleus for the construction of other industrial complexes (refineries,
additional LNG plants, support industries for oil/gas industry etc) in
Broome. This has already happened on other parts of the WA coastline such as
Port Hedland (south of Broome) and Kwinana (south of Perth), where the
establishment of one refinery led to the establishment of others, initially
to service the first mining and oil booms of the late 1960s/1970s. There are
allegedly vast untapped reserves of oil and LNG off the north-west
coastline. The establishment of LNG plants and oil refineries in Broome has
the likely added knock-on effect of opening up these offshore resources for
exploitation and providing added legitimacy to establishing new terrestrial
mines (minerals) in the Kimberleys (there are several large proposals on the
table at the moment). In my mind, that is the potential tipping point for
major environmental damage to occur. There is already intense pressure from
oil and gas companies to explore for and/or open up oil and/or gas fields
right along the WA coastline, as far as I'm aware as far south as Margaret
River (south of Perth). So we are talking about large-scale operations in WA
which in the long-term could lead to several industrial centres being
established along the WA coastline.
Stephen Ambrose
Ryde NSW
-----Original Message-----
From:
On Behalf Of Rosemary Royle
Sent: Tuesday, 31 May 2011 7:27 PM
To: Laurie Knight; Birding Aus
Subject: A tsunami of change potentially heading Broome's
way
A view form Wales:
I think this might be a bit of over dramatisation.
In particular LNG terminals can be quite unobtrusive - we have one here in
the Pembrokeshire National Park in the Milford Haven Waterway (all protected
and environmentally sensitive) and while there are a number of valid
objections to it on safety grounds etc now it is up and running it is on
balance much cleaner and less of a pollution risk than oil jetties and
refineries. (We have first hand experience here of the latter with the Sea
Empress disaster) There also may not be "thousands" of ships - each ship
carries an awful lot of LNG. And while the installation of the pipeline
caused some disruption, now you would not know it was there.
However I have to agree that I would hate to see Broome turned into yet
another mining town - apart form anything else, the area is an important
tourism resource which would be completely lost if its character changed.
Rosemary
Wales
|
