What is required?

How it can work

1. Government to Reinvest Profit for Water Supply

Government policy has to change to curb the massive waste of water that is occurring in this land of cyclical drought. Water retail companies such as South-East Water, City West Water and Yarra Valley Water are set up to sell water for a profit while the state governments also get a quick fix from allowing polluters to dump into the domestic sewerage system.

Regional areas in Australia are suffering because the water is being siphoned off for metropolitan industry, swimming pools, and the hosing down of footpaths. The government campaign is to blame the consumer.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that Governments only occasionally take proactive measure to make positive changes to the environment. Public relations campaigns should be closely scrutinized. Politicians tend to focus on the next election and lose sight of the bigger picture. Any major project will take a large amount of money, but the cost of doing nothing is higher even still. Water Authority executives receive bonuses depending on the amount of profit made….another reason not to save and recycle water.

The NIMTO principle, (not in my term of office) is endemic in our system. Years of inaction and band-aid decisions made in an attempt to protect the bottom line, have delivered the crisis we have in water issues today.  If the people demand a level of environment protection that is what will happen: People Power! 

2. Education, Education, Education

There is a new way of thinking that equalises the balance between our standard of living and the health of our natural resources so there will be some to manage in the future.

New Thinking Required:

Manage the inputs = Less nasty outputs

This philosophy has been around for a long while, under the banners of "Cleaner Production" and "Waste Minimisation". The outputs at the end of a process that has been made efficient and environmentally friendly become a resource that can be reused. This is opposite to the current thinking that has to manage the effects of the "end of pipe solution". This was usually done through dilution, such as build the smoke stack higher or build the outfall pipe longer. This was the origin of the phrase "the solution to pollution is dilution".

Future thinking with respect to environmental management can be thought of as environmental ethic. Traditionally this thinking was categorised by "decision makers" as something that happens in an ideal world and a pattern of thought of the "hippies". The world is changing and this pattern of thinking is prevalent in most people, in all walks of life. The dichotomy still exists with the decision makers operating from the same linear model of thinking that environmental benefit is secondary to the short-term financial constraints of the government. This ethic has come about from a concern for our own long-term survival and the realisation that humans are only one form of life and it is selfish to use the earth to the detriment of other species. One attempt at defining environmental ethic by Aldo Leopold follows: a decision is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. (A.Leopold, A Sand County Almanac New York, Oxford University Press, 1949)

The dilemma of the environmental ethic is this: unless there is public awareness regarding the true nature of the problems and some realistic solutions, public concern may rapidly fade. Education of the public to environmental problems and solutions (and non solutions) is of paramount importance. A broad understanding is required in the scientific, technological, economical, and legal aspects of controlling environmental pollution.

Understanding these aspects is additional to the understanding and acknowledgement of nature that is required. We are only humans and are living on the earth, for an infinitesimally small fraction of time. We do not own it, we are only visitors and are small cogs in a huge and still mysterious system. To pollute is inevitable, and it is argued that "nearly everything we do causes pollution". This may be so, yet no excuse exists for failing to implement environmental solutions or allocate funds to preserve our future.  

3. Examine the role water companies, the EPA and successive governments have played in the situation we are now in.

While the past is past, we have to look at what happened, so the necessary changes can be made to the future. Engineering practices and town planning principles of the previous century have delivered a standard of comfort in our living, however the environment has worn the cost.

Many common environmental issues become stuck in a loop of bureaucracy that operates essentially on policies that created the degradation of the environment in the first place; such as logging of old growth forests, especially in catchment areas and discharging effluent to the ocean.

This is not an exhaustive list of these unwritten rules:

If pollution is occurring, try and dilute it. Build the stack higher, build the pipe longer.

• An environmental problem that has become a major issue (defined as possibility of lost votes) is to be solved by taking action that a) takes the least amount of money b) can be sold well to the public as having fixed the problem
• Any revolutionary changes to environment policy will upset at least one major supporter base. This situation is avoided by not making any revolutionary changes to policy.
• It is accepted world wide that laws protecting the environment are inadequate and fines incurred by polluters are inadequate. The process of business and government are modelled on practices that essentially pollute the environment.

The Environment Protection Authority was developed in the late 1960's and has always played "catch up" to the polluting process. Along the way, the authority has received many budget allocations that have served to disarm the EPA from taking real action against polluters. The Kennett Government reduced the EPA's budget to $25M by 1996, in comparison with the NSW EPA's budget of $75M.

The issuing of fines to industrial polluters was reduced markedly in this time as the audit process was reduced which monitors industrial polluters. The number of fines to the individual were increased showing the inability to control the major sources of pollution.

                                                           1990-1991                1996-1997

Pollution abatement notices                          928                              90

Prosecutions for polluters                               42                               28

Litter fines                                                      400                          2683

 Clean Ocean Foundation has examined the licence given to Melbourne Water to discharge at Gunnamatta quite extensively. What is observed is that licence requirements are set out to be achieved by a certain date and when the date approaches, the clause becomes extended. It will not be until EPA is structured and funded in a committed manner will there be any real chance of managing pollution and implementing sustainable practices.

Powered by Taten webevolve™