Here’s an environmental quote of the day, and it’s a disturbing one. It has to do with the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Seems few places on this planet are safe from habitat degradation from you humans. This is a good example, particularly after Australians pledged a substantial amount of money to protect the ecologically important reef!
The corporation operating a port in Queensland will be dredging up sludge from the port and dumping it on the reef.
Here’s what the corporation had to say: “Just like roads, shipping channels require maintenance to keep ports operating effectively. Maintenance dredging involves relocating sediment which travels along the coast and accumulates over the years where our shipping operation occurs…………
Importantly, our assessment reports have found the risks to protected areas including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and sensitive habitats are predominantly low with some temporary short-term impacts to [some bottom-dwelling] habitat possible.”
One politician opposing the dumping, Larissa Waters, had this to say, “The last thing the reef needs is more sludge dumped on it, after being slammed by the floods recently. One million tonnes of dumping dredged sludge into world heritage waters treats our reef like a rubbish tip.”
One would hope that when the political dust clears, or before the sludge settles, cooler heads will prevail and the corporation will not be allowed to dump any of the sludge anywhere where it would cause further environmental degradation.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the case…it sounds like it’s a done deal because the dumping has been approved by the regulators. So, the Australian government has bought into this misguided gibberish.
There’s a lesson to be learned here: Just because it’s gibberish, doesn’t mean that the powers to be will see through its meaninglessness because it can, and often will, be passed off as meaningful discourse.
#GreatBarrierReef #Sludge #Queensland #Gibberish #Pollution #Ocean #Australia #CoralSea #WorldHeritageSite #SevenNaturalWondersOfTheWorld #CoralBleaching