Stuart Nettle May 4, 2009

The Bass Coast doesn't immediately come to mind when surfers think of Victoria. After all, the Surf Coast has Bells and a lotta history, the West Coast has the size and Two-Mile, and Phillip Island has barrels and a lot of blokes. So in that context you could say that the Bass Coast – from Kilcunda down to Walkerville – is a forgotten stretch of coastline. Perhaps it's for the same reason that this coast barely registers on Australian surfers conciousness that the proposed desalination plant at Wonthaggi has also been largely overlooked; it just doesn't have an appeal that the public can latch onto. Local surfers have long enjoyed the fact that their coast, and their waves, have been overlooked in favour of other more well-known waves in Vicco. Certainly there are at least two waves on the Bass Coast that would rival anything in the state – perhaps anything in Australia – on their day, so they'd rather not bring undue attention to the coast. Yet they need to bring attention to what is happening with the desalination plant. Because there are some very shady goings-on down Wonthaggi way.

At the most fundamental level desalination plants are a ridiculous exercise. Many people will disagree with me here and I know it. After all I live in the Sutherland Shire where the Kurnell desalination plant is currently under construction and the community attitude is split just about evenly on it. From all reports the 50/50 division is roughly the same on the Bass Coast. But what point is there in Australia signing the Kyoto Protocol when we are still green-lighting such  archaic, energy intensive projects as desalination plants? Further, it is irrelevant whether you believe in climate change or not now that Kyoto is ratified. Australia is 'financially obliged' to meet our targets and if we don't we are setting ourselves up for some very big penalties once 2012 rolls around. Yet I happen to believe that Kyoto should be ratified. And I also believe that reverse-osmosis technology uses an obscene amount of energy for a resource we waste so readily but could retrieve so easily. But it's not just the environmental and financial affairs that concern me. The social disturbances on the Bass Coast are equally unsettling. And it's no suprise when the plant has been carried out with a distinct lack of transparency and the type of community involvement expected of a third world dictatorship. A lot of the people directly affected by the plant won't talk to the media. Some because the government is acquiring their land and they've been told if they do speak their compensation will be jeopardised. Some because they took part in the protests, were completely ignored, and are now disillusioned. Others because they fear that if they speak out there will be backlash from those in the community that agree with the plant. One bloke who would talk was Pete Holland. Pete's a third-generation local and lived and surfed the Bass Coast all his life. A smooth goofy-footer who's done his time in Hawaii, and at 39 with a recent hip-replacement behind him, still chases the waves whenever he can. Pete's land borders the western edge of the site. When the state government was purchasing the land from the locals he said no to the voluntary acquisition program. He didn't want the compensation because he didn't want to leave his land although he doesn't think a desalination plant is the correct way to address water supply issues. Nevertheless, it appears that the desal plant is going ahead and Pete has accepted this. He believes that the government and the private contractor, Veolia, have come too far to be thwarted at this stage. Now resigned to the prospect of having a desal plant as his neighbour, Pete is more concerned with the process by which the community is being consulted and how the plant is being built. According to Pete, he and other community members have been kept in the dark with construction plans for the plant. Recently Pete, his wife and his young family have had their lives interupted by the company drilling tunnels for the pilot plant 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Beside the noise, the underground drilling makes his house vibrate and shake. When Pete remonstrated to Max Anderson, the site manager,  Mr Anderson replied that they had permission from the EPA to 'make as much noise as they want'. He subsequently asked the EPA if this was true and they replied that it was. So he asked for written documentation. To date he has not received it. Meanwhile the drilling continues each night. Pete then sought compensation for the disruption the drilling was causing as he was not made aware this would be part of the process. Yet when he enquired, he was told that all his rights to compensation were forfeited when he turned down the voluntary land acquisition. Again this was a verbal deposition and he's been unable to receive anything official in writing.

John Gemmill is the president of Bass Coast Boardriders and has played a large part in organising community demonstrations against the desal plant. To be honest when I first spoke to John I was expecting a forceful one-sided diatribe, yet instead we had a considered discussion. I was surprised by his big-picture considerations of environmental issues and detailed knowledge of desalination (later explained by his past vocation – a chemical engineer). He was most unlike your typical community-action agitator. Theoretically he is not opposed to desalination, but only when the proposal is open to review by all stakeholders and all other options have been exhausted. In Wonthaggi they weren't and they haven't. Although many scientists oppose the scheme and believe other methods of water retrieval are more sound, their findings have been roundly ignored by the Brumby government. In fact it's worth noting here that the government itself opposed the desalination plant when it was in opposition. Halfway through 2008 community action group 'Your Water, Your Say' took the Victorian State Government to the Federal Court. The premise of their case was that the project had been given the go ahead without full consideration of the environmental effects. It was their opinion that work had started illegally and they received legal advice saying as much. YWYS raised $20 000 to hire a lawyer for the case. For their defence the Victorian State Government hired five barristers and called in a swag of expert witnesses. Your Water, Your Say lost on technical grounds. The Federal Government ordered them to pay costs and that amount is still unsettled (those in the know estimate it will be around $200 000 to $300 000). Because of the loss YWYS has become technically insolvent. They can no longer campaign against the plant as campaigning is construed as trading and that would breach corporate law, meaning the directors would be personally liable for the court costs. YWYS has now evolved into Watershed Vic. In order to keep the fight going. One of the directors of YWYS was Chris Heisler. Like Pete Holland and John Gemmill, Chris is not fundamentally opposed to desalination plants, and thinks that in certain situations they are appropriate. Always as a last resort. In his view Victorians are not at that stage. (To read just one argument why this is so read one of my previous columns). Now, as this is a surfing website I probably should fill you in on the surfing front. Recently the Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden made an announcement that coastline directly adjacent to the plant would be closed to the public for two years. In a move that is representative of the whole project the closure was a suprise to locals. Further, they are unsure of just which waves the closure would include. When I spoke to one local surfer he was measuring distances on Google Earth to see if his favourite wave was gonna be off-limits. He couldn't find the information out any other way. Roughshod law, rushed action, environmental folly and blocked coastline; this is the state of play for the Wonthaggi desalination plant. A project that has divided the locals and is providing a test case for how strong our philospohical resolve to save the planet is. The rest of Australia should be paying more attention to it because, as environmental and population pressures mount, other communities will undoubtedly be confronted by similar scenarios.

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