What government would be dumb enough to ever allow drilling for oil 5,000 feet under the sea, so deep that divers can’t go to fix a leak? The same sort of government that would allow nuclear reactors to be built and uranium waste to be transported in regions where there are earthquakes, volcanic activity and other extreme natural events; and where human beings make mistakes. In other words, the whole planet and all governments.
Why aren’t those in charge smart enough to think (A) ‘that might be a good idea, but lets make sure there won’t be an environmental disaster that we can’t easily fix, if/when it all goes pear-shaped, before we give it the green light’. And (B) let’s make sure the company puts enough money aside in a government-controlled trust to ensure there is plenty of cash to implement any cleanup plan required. How intelligent would that be? It’s basic-level disaster-prediction/plan stuff, fundamental to running the average family household.
North-west Queensland copper mine, Lady Annie, has just changed hands again, and as far as I am aware, the toxic chemical leakage problem from tailings hasn’t been fixed as yet. Copper, uranium, zinc, aluminium, lead, arsenic, cobalt and nickel apparently leached into waterways – watercourses that run through cattle stations that are completely organic apart from cattle tick treatment; before ending up in the pristine prawn fisheries in the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Apparently Cape Lambert has sold the Lady Annie Mine to Hong-Kong listed China Sci-Tech Holdings Ltd for $135 million.
Meanwhile Kevin Rudd is banging on about a tax on mining ‘super profits’. If he were half smart, he’d instead be concentrating on charging an environmental levy (of adequate proportions) on ALL mining companies, from the very first day they start turning over a bit of soil, and put this money into a permanent environmental remediation trust. Especially if the Australian Government is going to continue allowing foreign residents to buy up our mines (trying to extract environmental clean-up money from a local company is hard enough, after a disaster has struck, let alone trying to get it from overseas residents).
It’s often the little mines that cause the most environmental damage, and very often they’ve already gone bust, or they do shortly after, leaving mum & dad taxpayers to foot the cleanup bill and tolerate degradation of the environment. And very often environmental damage occurs years later (eg from leaking tailings dams), or is only discovered years later (new technology or the cover-up falls apart). So the environmental levy money stays in the government trust in perpetuity, for use in future if required. The environmental protection levy is not returned to companies once they close the mine.
But that’s too much like common sense. Instead, we have a state government chasing shipping companies who own leaky rust buckets that have taken shortcuts and spilled oil near our Great Barrier Reef – rather than being more proactive, by restricting access and expanding the compulsory nature of having pilots on board ships travelling anywhere along the Queensland coast. (I.e., as usual, there’s stuff all work being done on prevention.) And we have President Obama jumping up and down telling everyone the U.S. Government will chase BP for restitution. Hey how about more work on making sure ANOTHER disaster like this NEVER occurs? How about a thorough inventory of all the potential man-made pollution disasters just waiting to happen, then a plan to rein in the risk? And a fund to deal with any problems that do arise, along with an emergency plan, already formulated?