I have a young pal called George, who lives on Tourist Road, in Kangaloon. He and his Mum and sisters live at "Dragon Farm".
Robertson is a misty, cloudy place, so while Comet McNaught may have visited the rest of Australia from 15 January onwards, it took until Friday night before the comet was visible in Robertson.
These unusually coloured Christmas Bells (Blandfordia nobilis) were flowering at Butler's Swamp yesterday. There were other, more normally coloured ones, around as well. Those were like the photo I published in the blog entry two days ago. Classic red and gold ones. But these gold ones have a charm all of their own.
Butler's Swamp is one of those "Endangered Ecological Communities" which is protected under Federal legislation. With unusual plants such as this, it is important that the place be protected from the effects of the borefield sucking the groundwater from under this swamp, and others like it."Environment and Water Resources Minister Malcolm Turnbull has put a stopwork order on the NSW Government's key $50 million water plan project, thanks to Latham.
The Latham Snipe, the bird, that is.
Mr Turnbull's department believes the bird may be harmed by the State Government's Kangaloon aquifer project, News Limited reports. The project would "mine" water beneath western Sydney to augment the city's dwindling water supply. It was meant to come online next month.The stopwork move had put Premier Morris Iemma's whole water policy at risk, New Limited said.
However, the federal Department of Environment, Heritage and Conservation has written to the Sydney Catchment Authority saying it is concerned that "subtle" changes in the hydrology from the mining may have an impact on a number of birds and flowers.
"Large diameter production bore"
"The state government has cried foul, claiming it is nothing more than political interference and hypocrisy," the News Limited writes and quotes state Environment Minister Bob Debus as saying: "Again, the Federal Government entwines us in red tape as we try and deliver water".© 2007 AAP
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There are some factual problems with the details of this story. None-the-less, at least we know that the Department of Environment is now asking the right questions of the SCA.
Clearly, they have read our submissions in detail and are asking the SCA to answer the very specific questions we raised. For example, we raised the details about hydrological changes to the swamps? The DEH's own listing of the "Montane peat swamps" (as a category) lists hydrological changes as a threatening process. In its original submission, The SCA had said there would only be minor disturbances around the fringes of the swamps. They completely omitted to mention that they were going to suck the groundwater down to 60 metres below the swamps.
This is not the "win" we were first told it was. But it is a far better outcome than the SCA being granted approval to go ahead with the borefield.
Amazingly, this is a river bed in the Sydney Catchment.
The irony of this situation is beautifully illustrated by the fact that within a few metres of Butler's Swamp, large diameter pipes are being laid, to take the water away.
The State Government has deemed the Kangaloon Borefield to be "Critical Infrastructure" under something called "Section 3A". All I really know is that this power gives Minister Sartor the power to declare something as being necessary to proceed, and all the local Government Regulations and by-laws are rendered irrelevant. Not only that, all the usual protections which people rely upon, for example under the Threatened Species Act, also are deemed irrelevant.
You will be able to discuss this in full and loud voice at a forthcoming Public Meeting to be convened by the Save Water alliance at the Robertson School of Arts on Thursday 1 February, at 6:00pm.
In the morning, Pru Goward, the Liberal Candidate for Goulburn met with the SWA people, and then we went on to the main works area, on Tourist Road, just east of the Nepean River crossing. This was an interesting and informative meeting, and Pru was keen to lear about the Aquifer.
Ann Sudmalis is across the issues to do with the Aquifer, and is keen to assist in whatever way she can. As a matter of fact she was just on the phone, as I write this entry, speaking with me about a further submission to DEH, and also offering to help in any way possible.
As a result, a bushfire hundreds of Kilometres from Melbourne, caused blackouts in Melbourne, and caused chaos on the suburban train network.
Just remember, folks, that John Howard wants you to be "relaxed and comfortable". And further, remember that he does not believe in Global Warming. He said:Thanks Denis, I appreciate you looking into it. You are right donating “profits” is quite different to donating their entire takings for the day.
The other thing I notice about Woolies is that virtually on a weekly basis there is less and less choice – they are cutting out a lot of items and also a lot of items are no longer available in smaller containers – only large eg my Caro – an alternative to coffee beverage. The large container goes off by the time I get to finish it.
I will circulate your email.
Thanks again.
Cheers
What is happening with the Kangaloon Aquifer?
However, they are obviously getting ready to pump. These pipes are 25mm in diameter (roughly one foot, in the "old money") so they will pump a huge amount of water throught these pipes,
Well, in a wonderfully ironic move, the contractors have erected a protective fence around this particular plant.
You might recall that I wrote two stories last week about the super storm which buffetted West Australia last week.
It is interesting that of the main species listed - Wattlebirds, Yellow-throated Miners, New Holland Honeyeaters, and Singing Honeyeaters - are all in the family of Honeyeaters. All are nectar feeders and insectivores. These birds are not normally represented in huge numbers, and they are not the obvious, colourful birds which people normally notice (not like Parrots, for example).
Anyway, as I left McGuinness Drive I noticed a bird walking along the edge of the road, just opposite the last property on the right, where there are two ponds. I stopped in time to see this bird wiggle itself into the cover provided by some long grass and rush-like plants in an informal gutter which clearly is wet much of the time (judging by the way the plants were growing).
Later in the afternoon, I heard on a weather report on the ABC local radio that a cool change which had blown in from the south-west had brought in a wall of smoke coming from the East Gippsland fires. That's pretty extraordinary. It was also odd that the smoke was so dense, given that it had travelled some 500 Kms.
According to a report in "The Sydney Morning Herald" today:The report in the SMH goes on: "Bureau of Meteorology senior 
forecaster Noel Puzey said the system would move into the Great Australian Bight by tomorrow and would probably bring rain to fire-ravaged Victoria by the weekend."
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My father always told me that the really good rains in the eastern half of the continent were usually the "wash" from a tropical cyclone coming in from the north west of the continent, and heading into the gulf country of Queensland, then continuing down into central NSW. Those storms are the key to the rivers which flood Lake Eyre and the Darling River system. Those floods are the stuff of legend - part of the great Australian myth.
The Bureau of Meteorology has announced its calculations for Year 2007. Australia is a large land, covering tropical and temperate climate zones - so what happened was that the south-east corner was hot and dry (as most of us will remember), as was the coastal strip near Perth. But the north and most of the west was hugely wet, and that helped cool the averages.
It is raining outside (or has been) and we need that - if only to prevent the SCA from committing an act of environmental vandalism on the Kangaloon Aquifer.
The Web map for all of Australia shows NO bushfires in Tasmania (good news for them). There are 3 fires still burning in Victoria - two in Gippsland, (near Dargo, north from Bairnsdale) and one up in the hills above Mansfield (seemingly not near any main settlements).
