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MONDAY, APRIL 24, 2017 | BAIRNSDALE ADVERTISER
– Editorial –
Coal fights
for its life
In the tortured debate on electricity in eastern
Australia two facts stand out. One is the fear
that Victoria and South Australia are at risk because their governments prefer ideology to
common sense.
The other is that coal is a source of global pollution and must be banished from the world.
Both facts require examination.
Nobody knows the cost of electricity next
year or next month. Mostly we believe the
news will be bad. Nobody knows whether
there will be enough electricity for our needs.
The Tambo River is one of the rivers the eels migrate through in early autumn. (PS)
Advertiser
Bairnsdale
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Eel migration: a
remarkable journey
Early autumn in Gippsland: the leaves on
the trees change colour, rain increases, the
temperature starts to change, and the eels
of Gippsland’s rivers and lakes are on the
move.
Eel migration is one of the most fascinating
natural phenomenon in the world, although little is known about parts of the incredible journey these creatures make.
Here in Gippsland it starts late summer,
when mature adult eels living in the calm,
fresh water of the region’s rivers stop feeding
and begin to travel downstream towards the
brackish environment of the Gippsland Lakes.
They journey along the Thomson, Latrobe,
Avon, Macalister, Tambo, Perry, Mitchell and
Nicholson rivers and arrive in the Lakes en
masse late-March, before migrating out to sea
in April/May to spawn.
Natural and man-made barriers are no obstacle for the remarkable creatures, which traverse land when necessary, hurtle down dam
spillways, slide through stormwater grates,
and even manage concrete walls should the
need arise.
The eels are driven by instinct to return to the
place from which they spawned, believed to be
deep in the Coral Sea in the South Pacific
Ocean, some 3000 to 4000 kilometres away.
Along the way down the rivers they begin to
change colour, lightening from a dark brownygrey, to a light silver.
It is in depths of the open ocean that
detail of the eels’ activity becomes scant, with
little known or documented about their
behaviour at this point.
Silver eels are only rarely caught at sea, leading scientists to believe they disappear deep
into the ocean.
What is known is that they only reproduce
once before dying, most likely exhausted after
spawning up to 20 million eggs some 300-
3000 metres below the surface.
The leaf shaped larvae then move through the
ocean’s current, drifting, floating and
swimming until they reach the east coast of
Australia.
As they reach the coast, the larvae transform
into small transparent baby ‘glass’ eels, and
then remarkably begin to make their own way
to the Gippsland Lakes and the rivers from
which their parents came.
It is believed the eels receive some kind of
genetic imprinting from their parents in order
to know where to travel.
As they feed in the brackish Gippsland
Lakes, the eels become darker in colour and
these juveniles, now called elvers, finally
begin their own migratory journey upstream
into the rivers to feed and mature for the next
10-20 years, before the process starts all over
again.
If you’re out on the Gippsland Lakes this autumn, keep an eye out for the eel migration
and perhaps tip your head in respect at the
journey that awaits these unassuming, but incredible creatures.
An eel at Duck Arm in the Gippsland
Lakes. (PS)
The Victorian
Country
Press
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Mr Guy shows that not all politicians accept
that coal is finished, just when advances in carbon capture and storage are being reported.
General manager of the Melbourne-based
Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute,
Alex Zapantis, says China launched its biggest
CCS project this month.
Worldwide there are 16 CCS plants. By the
end of 2018 CCS facilities will save 40 million
tonnes of CO2 a year - about the amount saved
(in 2015) from the entire solar capacity of
Britain, France and Spain.
The institute was set up by the Rudd Government but is now a private company. Rowan
Callick, China correspondent for The Australian, wrote last week that CCS attracts little
support in Australia, with only $560 million
from public funds in more than a decade, compared with $2.8 billion a year for renewables
until 2030.
Callick’s report will create little interest, even
though Australia’s carbon capture institute is
deeply involved in China’s giant CCS project
in Shaanxi province. Energy reporting is dominated by bodies like the Conservation Foundation and the Marine Conservation Society,
which speak with the authority of angels but
without angelic intent.
This month they helped green groups opposing the $16.5 billion Adani coalmine in
Queensland circulate images of ‘coal dust’ on
beaches near the Abbot Point terminal. The
pictures in The Sydney Morning Herald were
captioned a ‘Black tide’ flowing from ‘Adani’s
coal spill’. Green groups said a “thick black
sludge of coal” and coal-laden water were
spilling into wetlands after tropical cyclone
Debbie.
The ‘coal dust’ was in fact magnetite, a mineral fusion of iron and oxygen, which (as any
green group should know) occurs naturally in
that area.
Marine Conservation Society officials said
the images could not be verified before publication. They were published to draw attention
to the issue, explained the society’s director.
So it’s alright to publish pictures that may be
misleading? That sort of lame excuse is all-too
familiar. Government-funded bodies are too
ready to use lies and misinformation to inflame
public opinion, even against legitimate industrial projects like coal mines.
Friday, April 28, 2017 ................9am – 4.30pm
Saturday, April 29, 2017 .............9am – 4.00pm
BAIRNSDALE AERODROME
2017 FEATURE ATTRACTIONS: Whipcracking, Woodchop, Sheep Shearing, Sheep Dog Trials, Live Music, Great Food,
Unchained BMX Live Shows, Huge Car Dealership Display, Large Range of Farm Machinery, Free Children’s Entertainment incl.
Animal Nursery, Reptile Show, Jumping Castle and Face Painting, Dahlsens Home and Lifestyle Marquee incl. Craft Display
TICKETS
Adults: $18.00 | Children 6 to 16 years: $5.00 | Children 5 and under: free
Buy your tickets online to save waiting
in line. www.egfielddays.com.au
Over 200 exhibitor stalls to browse. No dogs allowed.
)##(
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,#"#(# Such uncertainties produce theories that mutate into ideologies, which thrive when answers
are in short supply and spawn lies and promises. Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy
promised, if he becomes premier, to keep
brown coal-fired stations to fuel the state’s energy needs. Loy Yang and Yallourn will remain.
The promise is negotiable. It has to be, so far
out from an election.
Magnetite isn’t coal
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Alternatives to coal come packaged in colours
of the rainbow. We call them ‘renewables,’ a
word hinting at rustic purity without mentioning the billions of public dollars that sustain
them.
Propaganda is a finely-tuned instrument of
public policy. The future of coal and its manifest benefits may depend on whether cheap
pollution-free energy really is possible. Not
everyone thinks so.
TATTSLOTTO DRAW 3731
EAST GIPPSLAND
S H I R E
C O U N C I L
Nos. 30, 13, 11, 18, 24, 21 Supps: 15, 27