Clr Larry Whipper surrenders credibility

It is with great sorrow that I note that Councillor Larry Whipper appears to have surrendered his credibility as a member of the Upper Nepean Community Reference Group (UNCRG). I refer to his statement in today's local Media, re the Kangaloon Aquifer.

Larry has issued a statement in the Southern Highland News, today which is headlined as: Pumping "Safe". I could scarcely believe my eyes when shown the paper, today.

The case for this "argument" has already been raised, discussed and discredited on this blog site - on 29 June 2007. In words of one syllable (for Larry's sake) the fact that the SCA claim the Kangaloon Aquifer is filled to overflowing simply confirms our belief that the Aquifer is very, very small. That should be ringing alarm bells in the SCA, and in particular amongst the members of the CRG, not the opposite, as appears to be the case with Larry's response. This is confirmed by Consultant Hydrologist W.R. (Ray) Evans's two reports on the Kangaloon Aquifer, and on the First Month Pumping Report, both of which have been made available to the SCA and to the CRG members.

Larry's statements reveal just how little he has understood, from being on the CRG.

For example, he says that the SCA is taking deep water, not the shallow water the farmers rely upon. That is wrong on three counts:

1. The farmers have deep bores - some are deeper than the SCA's bores. I suggest that you talk to some real farmers, Larry, as the Save Water Alliance committee members have done.
   
2. The SCA is not, and never was taking "only deep water", despite claims to the contrary. We demonstrated that fact, at a Public Meeting in Robertson on 1 February 2007 , with publication of drilling logs from bores at Butler's Swamp and Stockyard Swamp - in one case, the bore takes water from as shallow as 11 metres below the surface. Even Matt Brown, Member for Kiama has acknowledged that we are right on this point, despite having denied it at first.
   
3. The Kangaloon Aquifer is heavily fractured, with fault lines running in several different lines across the Aquifer. This means that the separation between old (deep) water and modern (shallow) water is almost meaningless. These deep cracked lines allow water to penetrate into the Aquifer quickly, instead of relying on slow penetration of water through consolidated sandstone rock.

These facts have all been widely known, and published. Where has Larry been all this time? In Aristophanes' Cloud-cuckoo-land?

If I have been able to piece all this together from documents, mostly published by the SCA themselves, it is a sad indictment of Larry Whipper, that, having been regularly briefed by the SCA, through the CRG, that he has such a poor understanding of the true facts of the situation.

He has lost credibility as a community representative on the CRG. He has become a publicist for the SCA, no longer acting as a Community Representative, which is his official function on the CRG. And I say that, not because he does not agree with me, but rather, because he has failed to understand the true nature of the geology of the Kangaloon Aquifer; and technical details of the SCA's proposed borefield. One can only speculate as to what his motives might be, in adopting the mantle of an apologist for the SCA.

*****

It is a shame. I quite like Larry, as a person.

I note, incidentally, that Larry's statement to the Press was made in his capacity as a CRG member, not as a Councillor of the Wingecarribee Shire.