How Social Media has been used to spread HYSTERIA!!

Greenpeace, WWF , Fight for the Reef and various other Green organizations and groups have been waging a war on the fossil fuel industry.  All in the name of so called Global Warming which they now call Climate Change!!  Using the Dredging at Abbot Point as their tool in their fight against COAL!! Most of the information you see on the internet are full of lies and scaremongering. 

The power of social media reaches far and wide.  All over the world people are up in arms about a tiny dredging campaign at a 30 year old Coal Terminal. A coal terminal which has dredged many times before with no scientific proof of any damage done to any of the surrounding environment!! The sediment from this dredging is far less than the sediment that travels out of our massive river systems every year when they flood!!

Lets go over some of the absolutely amazing lies and scaremongering spread by these so called Green groups.

With photos like this doing the rounds , how can you blame people for being misled. "Dumping on the Reef."  The reef is not being dumped on. The dredged spoil is being deposited about 40kilometres away from the reef!! The seabed floor which is mainly sand , silt and clay is being picked up from one area near the Abbot Point terminal and deposited in an area of similar seabed. No seagrass or reef anywhere near where the spoil will be deposited.   Dr Brett Kettle who has experience in dredging has stated that the effects would be flat out extending 10 kilometres from the dredging site!!  

____________________________________________________________________________

 Stop Dredgers Tearing up the Reef!! "Don't Dredge Our Reef"  The Reef is not being dredged. The dredging is taking place at Abbot Point, near the mainland of Australia, the Reef is about 40 kilometres away!! Photos like the above are being put up all over the internet to gain public support to stop the dredging at Abbot Point. Would you join them if you saw a misleading photo like this?? Ofcourse you would.  This is the problem, telling mistruths to gain support. 

_______________________________________________________________________________

A coal ship super highway?? Really!! The above picture makes it seem like the reef will be used as an industrial zone and ships will be using it as a super highway. When in fact, the reef itself is nowhere near any industry. No industries will be built on the Reef!!  There is a designated shipping lane for all ships to use through the Great Barrier Reef.   Not just for coal ships, but for all types of ships, such as Cruise Ships, ships used for exporting and importing goods to and from Australia.  Once again, a misleading photo to shock people into thinking something that is totally not true!!

___________________________________________________________________________________

The above photo taken of Stone Island has been sighted in a few articles and facebook pages online.  This photo is of a reef near Stone Island off the coast of Bowen.  They have made out that dredging has caused this reef to die.  What they failed to mention in their articles etc was that , very near to this reef on the mainland of Bowen is a sewerage plant.  Effluent had been going into the ocean for years!! There is no possible way that dredging could ever had been responsible for this.

If you look at the above google image of where Stone Island is situated in relation to Abbot Point, you will then realize how impossible that any dredge sediment could ever make its way around the corner to the island!! For that matter , if sediment did travel that far it would have been all over the beaches of Bowen. I can tell you right now , there has never been sediment washing up on the beaches.  

________________________________________________________________________________

Talking about sediment, brings up this very misleading photo.  Saying that dredge spoil can travel up to 80km!!  More half truths with no scientific proof. They took this from a GBRMPA report.  The GBRMPA itself released an interpretive statement to accompany the report that says the risk assessments in the study were for comparative purposes only and could not be used to access the impact of a particular project!!

The interpretive report said "Due to budget and timeframe constraints, and the technical challenges posed by the large spatial coverage and the extended period for simulation, it was necessary to make a number of simplifying assumptions. Some of the assumptions do not reflect real conditions, leading to a lack of allignment with existing field measurements!!

If the spoil did travel up to 80 km then every time Abbot Point dredged previously, the beaches of Bowen and surrounding areas would have been covered with washed up sediment. No documented evidence of that ever happening.  Below is the link to the interpretive statement from GBRMPA.

Interpretive Statement - GBRMPA

_______________________________________________________________________________

The photo above did the rounds awhile ago when the dredging was first approved.  It was actually a photo of dredging of the Dubai Palm Islands off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf.   The comments posted below the photo are typical of the scaremongering and uneducated posts from people who know nothing about dredging.

Very misleading photo.  The dredging in the above photo used the rainbowing technique to disperse the dredged material. The dredging at Abbot Point will use a trailing suction hopper dredger. The dredged spoil will be sucked up using a suction pipe that is lowered to the seabed floor, it will then be taken to where it is to be dispersed.  The doors will open at the bottom of the dredger and the dredged material will be dispersed, most of it will sink straight to the bottom. 

Below is a video explaining the techniques. Remembering, that rainbowing will not be used at Abbot Point.

Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger Video

  

________________________________________________________________________________

These are just a sample of some of the misleading photos doing the rounds.  Ofcourse, there have been so many more. A point to remember:  just because you see a picture on a computer screen, it does not always mean that it is a true representation of what is actually happening!!