Contrary to the popular hysteria currently being pushed re possible catastrophic isolation west of railway line due to impassability as a result of massive coal trains: OMG!!! What if you need an ambulance? OMG!!! What if you need a fire engine? OMG!!! What if you need police? ...it is already possible for emergency services to get from one side of Scone to the other...yes just head down Joan Street, through and/or over the fence (seriously if middle aged mum can do it, easy-peasy for emergency services), hang a left onto pretty good make-shift road...and there it is...an underpass right under the railway line. Come on, guys! We don't have to play this 'Chicken Little' game...we don't have to panic and we don't have to make hasty decisions... BUT...
...we do need to be thinking clearly about what all these infrastructure options mean for us and why these options are being thrusted upon us! No to the bypass No to the overpass No to our stupid love affair with coal It's breaking our town-heart...literally.
(Images: Fight for the reef, Australian Marine Conservation Society, YouTube)
From our position of being bamboozled with 'options' for Scone, the bigger picture is masked. But we need to turn our minds to that big picture...because it's one of coal mines and they require checking. We need to be saying "no"to new coal mines, "no" to viral development, and "no" to community destroying infrastructture period We mustn't be distracted by vested interests and politicians. If we didn't have '[coal-mines] to the right of us,' '[coal-mines] to the left of us' and well as '[coal mines] in front of us,' we wouldn't be feeling quite so 'volleyed and thundered' (a million apologies, Lord Tennyson!!) No kidding...(more apologies, Lord T)...ours is 'to reason why' and 'to make reply,' and ours is certainly 'not to do or die.' Big coal projects can be cancelled (see "Fight for the Reef" above), or rerouted, and politicians can enact change. So heartening to read in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald that Mozambique Mineral Resources Minister Esperanca Biasrealise totally getscoal: "...mineral resources are not renewable"
and
"how they are removed from the surface, underground or water may only be done once, but the impacts of that removal forever impact the natural and economic environment." Furthermore according to Gareth Hutchens, the Mozambique government forced Rio Tinto... "...to write down the value of its coal reserves In Mozambique's Tete province by $3 billion after the government prevented it taking coal, by barge, from the company's mine down the Zambezi River." We could do this too - in fact maybe we could do both - (1) cancel the 2 new Gunnedah mines and then (2) reroute any leftover coal we haven't cancelled to a more suitable heavy industry rail corridor (word-on-the-scone-street is that the Ulan railway line is possible and could work). So why not?
The 'options' on the Scone table are too political and unsatisfactory, and we can't agree, so why not just put our feet down and make demands namely 'goodbye new coal mine plans?' It's clearly possible.
(Images: Bill Oddie's Bankwatch, Global Witness, YouTube)
Bill Oddie on Big Banker & Big Logger, a formidable coalition wreaking havoc on our planet... ...of course in the Hunter we bear witness everyday to the equally destructive coalition of Big Banker & Big Miner - shame on all these corporations destroying everything in their reach and beyond...
...a pox on all their cheque books and caterpillars!!!
Dear Joel (my federal member for Hunter) and George (my state member for Upper Hunter), I
have written to you before on this matter, and this terrible trade is
still going on. You said you were going to stop it. To watch the cruelty
exposed on The 7:30 Report is unbearable. How can you let this happen? How can Australia sit by and pretend that it'll be all ok once we've sorted it out (which we never do)? How
can we be so arrogant to think that we can keep an eye on these poor
animals and guard them against acts of cruelty from our sunny shores? How can we ever be sure what exactly happens to these poor wretched animals when they are so far away in other lands? Enough
is enough - ban live export now. Open up the abattoirs here again, make
the meat producers pay proper Australian wages - ban live export now. From
here on in, I refuse to vote at any election state or federal until
you, our elected representatives, provide solid assurances that this
wicked practice is to be stopped now. Any animal
leaving Australia ought to leave 'already dead' - I cannot bear being part
of this commercial cruelty. Whilst Australian governments refuse to ban
this ghastly practice, their dreadful tortuous deaths are done in our
name. BAN LIVE ANIMAL EXPORT NOW. Yours in abject misery at what I can't watch on The 7:30 Report, Sue Abbott (published at 'Freedom Cyclist' too)
A bleak french song on the natural world and its 'theme-park' destiny... ...you only have to look at the Hunter Valley with its juxtaposition of mines and vines to suspect this could also be our future here.
In a political bid to involve the community in our 'high street' problems, signs have been strategically placed around town to alarm us about one of the proposed options apparently emanating from the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS). Introducing the bypass...
...which clearly is not a political favourite judging from recent correspondence the town has received from our federal member for Hunter, the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon coupled with 'Pollyanna' quotes from current mayor and general manager in local rag. We all know that they've got their hearts set on an overpass on the northern end of our high street. But as I said on the phone to Joel's office last week both ideas are rubbish. Re the overpass, I'd really like to know why can't we go underground, and put the wretched coal trains underneath our beleagured town. It's not like this is a new idea - it's been looked at before and the feasibility plans have been with council for years. Re the bypass, I'm totally opposed to it and have been for the entire 30 years that I've lived in Scone. This environmentally ruinous proposition has raised its ugly head many times and has never really gained any legs - sigh - is it really now or are we just being cast again as the usual bunnies in the point-scoring bluff-calling game between the powers that be?
But for argument's sake let's pretend that the bypass really is a consideration; for starters (a) it would kill our country town trade in our high street, (b) decimate our fabulous netball courts, hockey, soccer, & cricket pitches in our much treasured sports complex, and (c)drastically alter life as they know it for residentswho-currently-live-in bypass' proposed pathway.
...& all that scary stuff about the town being cut off from emergency services blah-di-blah-di-blah...so we've got to have a bypass...Oh my!!
That's ridiculous...you can already get under the railway line and connect with the other side of town where emergency services hang out - I know because I did it with my 4 kids, 1 hubby and 6 horses in August 2000, and that same under-rail connection we used then still shows up on Google maps all these years later.
So 'if I could say one thing'...
...'no' to the overpass option, a massive 'NO' to the bypass option, and a 'YES PLEASE' toan underpass option. Thanks!
