The Twelve Apostles Gas Plant: Lessons Learnt

For anyone who feels threatened by gas company exploration here is a list of pitfalls the unwary should be concerned about.

Here is the start of a Be Informed, Be Wary list:

Be wary of the consultants who will try and make even coal-seam gas mines sound like days spas;

Once they're in, they're in: The original consultant employed by the first gas plant to be built near the Twelve Apostles assured the community that only one plant would ever be built - there are now four;

Ask about issues the proponents will never tell you about - like the numbers of trucks that will be shuttling along narrow country roads to and from the gas plant and the night-time ligthing which will reconfigure the night-scape (the lights from the Twelve Apostles gas plants are so bright at night that they can be mistaken for a town);

Ask how is it possible that gas companies are permitted to self-regulate for noise: the Environmental Protection Authority are understaffed and under-funded. From our experience the EPA is almost powerless in country areas. The gas companies therefore take their own readings about the noise they emit. And if they do, on the off chance, take an excessive reading, the wind, birds, tractors and perhaps the untimely flatulence of one of the gas company employees taking the reading will be blamed;

Your shire will not be interested in your plight: the Corangamite Shire has devolved all responsibilty to the EPA;

The gas companies have a great escape clause in many of their operating licences. This refers to Unplanned Events. Not irregularly does the gas plant near to the home of Mr and Mrs Rogered 'blow up'. A great explosion of sound - like the sound of a fighter jet - shakes houses and results in a flare some 10metres or more high. This is an unplanned event and even if it happens twice a day it will not be regarded as excessive noise;

And about that flare: that 10metre flame is permissible even on days of Total Fire Ban. Hard to believe after the events of Black Saturday. But then, a lot about how gas companies really operate is hard to believe:

And finally, don't fall for the sucker-punch, the lure of the lucre. Gas companies will dole out sponsorship for community programs. At Port Campbell the life savers wear bathers with a gas company logo on them. In this way the companies get under a community's guard: don't let them in. Raise the money the old fashioned way - rally the organisation's troops and cart hay for a farmer or build a farm shed. Keep the integrity of your organisation.

More History of the Twelve Apostles Gas Plant

Mr and Mrs Rogered have at various times in their four-year fight with Woodside and now Origin - the companies control or have controlled a gas plant near the Twelve Apostles and within sight of Victoria's Great Ocean Road - pleaded with representatives of the Corangamite Shire, including its mayor, and the EPA to help them solve the problem of toxic noise which comes from the gas plant.

Mayor Makin was not interested in our situation. The EPA have never taken our plight seriously. Mr and Mrs Rogered's veracity has always been questioned.

In regard to the plight of Mr and Mrs Rogered, below is another history lesson. The first part of the lesson is an excerpt from a 2010 email Mr and Mrs Rogered sent to the EPA:

Dear XXX,
out of sheer desperation I send some figures from Woodside's own recordings in 2009. These recording were taken from near our backdoor

Woodside Readings from Sat 31 Jan 2009

LEQ average: 51.7dBA
L90 average: 40.8dBA

Sun 1 Feb:

LEQ average: 48.3dBA
L90: 40.8dBA

Of course, nothing has ever come of this or anything else

sincerely

Mr and Mrs Rogered

Note: the gas plant is only licensed to emit 35db of noise. Noise is not a linear measurment and the above readings are more than double the licence limit.

For those of you still with the Rogereds here is another historical footnote. It's an extract from The Age (February 2011):

VICTORIANS have lost confidence in the ability of the state's Environment Protection Authority to do its job, according to a highly critical internal review.
It found the EPA had become confused about its role as an environmental regulator, had lost focus on prosecuting businesses and become ''fractured, reactive and inconsistent''.

The internal investigation was ordered last year by EPA chief executive John Merritt after damning external reviews by the Victorian Ombudsman and Auditor-General.

Twelve Apostles Glow

Mr Rogered met a hiker at the Twelve Apostles recently.

The person had just completed the Great Ocean Walk. They asked me if I happened to know what the glow was that they could see from their campground at Princetown, some 20km from the Origin gas plant, at night.

When I told them about the flare and the gas plant that was visible from the Great Ocean Road, they were understandably appalled their sense of an uncorrupted coastal experience had been compromised. Elsewhere, people who live in the valley between the Origin gas plant and Port Campbell hear the Origin plant. Like ours, their lifestyle has been be compromised.

Sustainability is a significant issue for many businesses. It appears to be so for Origin also. I have taken the liberty of borrowing some words from the Origin website: “To Origin, sustainability means managing our business with a view to the future, both of our own business and of those affected by what we do.”

Could Origin please clarify if the above statement applies to everybody who is affected by what Origin does. Or is it just some people?


sincerely, Mr Rogered