Sydney's desal plant

Yay for desalinisation! It gives us drinking water while both burning up huge energy amounts as if there was no issue about pollution and increasing the local water salinity in the ocean by such an amount that most of the local marine life has to move on. And Sydney is getting one in Kurnell.

One could never claim Kurnell was a pristine environment to begin with however. Being located on Botany Bay this place faces pollution from Sydney's delightful Cooks River (which i think once scored by being named Australia's most polluted river) and Sydney Airport nee Kingsford Smith. It did/does have a few trees however.

The locals are complaining with good reason that the construction of the desal plant is literally causing their houses to fall apart due to the 24/7 construction work. This is a genuine issue, to the point where even a notoriously lightweight current affairs show (Today Tonight, now hosted by ex channel 10 sports reporter Matt White!) has reported on the issue. In terms of noise pollution I don't think the issue is as bad due to proximity to the airport and Port Botany (although the airport does have a curfew). This is what the locals are facing.

What is the rest of the state facing? Well the men who announced desal are no longer even in parliament, let alone Premier. This was Bob Carr and Morris Iemma. Carr, a frustrated American historian who now works for Macquarie Group (who missed out did or not bid for any slice of the pie -what you expect me to research this?) and Iemma (or Droopy Dog as he will be referred to from now on) were the Premiers who got desal to the point where it could not be cancelled. Droopy claimed that the construction of a wind farm at Bungendore would offset the energy used by the desal. Wind power is highly reliable, hence so many places around the world use it*. It will instead be powered by one of the few resources (apart from public servants and pr chicks) that NSW has in abundance - coal. Glorious, environmentally friendly coal! Thankfully many of NSW's coal mines are located in places such as the Hunter and Illawarra which are rusted on Labor voting seats so the use of coal may even be a bonus in these places, despite the ongoing diversification of industry in those areas (I'll have three points of ICE please).

Iemma got skewered in true NSW political fashion and was replaced by Nathan Rees. Now Nathan found himself in a very hard place. Not only were the state's finances in more of a mess than the grammar in a teenage girl's SMS but he had and continues to be tied to this massive infrastructure project left to him by his predecessor (he has more problems than this but that's a later post).

What to do? He can't do anything really, especially when you look at the companies involved in the construction of the desal plant. Bovis Lend Lease (currently being investigated by New York authorities for overcharging on the World Trade Centre site - niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice), Kellogg, Brown and Root (not sure if they still are but they were a subsidiary of Halliburton who have done a great job in Iraq ) and Worley Parsons (an Australian/Canadian company who have been involved in Iraq reconstruction and in an earlier incarnation were involved in the Sydney ocean outfall project. You have to wander what WP said/offered to beat Halliburton to any Iraq projects, then again they may have won tenders to make Iraq look less of a US monopoly). NSW's recent big project history and future plans would prohibit being too tough on these guys one would suspect.

So NSW has this wizzbang desal plant. Lucky us. A multibillion dollar project that despite objections from the Opposotion will go online and continue to operate no matter who gains power (unless the Greens somehow manage to gain power in NSW in the next 50 years) as there is no way the Opposition would scrap such a large piece of functioning infrastructure. And who do we blame for this? Well we could blame Carr and Droopy but what would be the point? This is institutionalised uselessness in the NSW political system from both sides. Unless there is major change in both major parties projects such as this will continue being put forward - even now it appears Labor is doing something very similar with the Iron Cove Bridge duplication and the CBD Metro line and if it wasn't 4:10am and I wasn't tired I'm sure I could think of a similar example from the Lib/Nats.

Aren't we all so lucky?

*not necessarily true. Although it would be nice wouldn't it?