<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/may/28/approval-of-woodside-lng-project-gambles-with-ancient-heritage-for-short-term-gain>
"We don’t know all the evidence that the new environment minister, Murray Watt,
had before him when he decided to approve a 40-year life extension to one of
Australia’s biggest fossil fuel developments so that it could run until 2070.
But we do know this. The decision largely turned on whether the North West
Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) development on the Pilbara’s Burrup Hub can
coexist for decades into the future with an incredible collection of ancient
Murujuga rock art, some of it nearly 50,000 years old and unlike anything else
on the planet.
And there is enough evidence in the public domain for people to have, at best,
serious doubts.
A summary of a rock art monitoring report compiled last year – but only
released by the unwaveringly pro-gas Western Australian Labor government last
Friday afternoon – acknowledged that emissions of nitrogen dioxide and sulphur
dioxide had damaged the rock types on which the art is etched.
But it said this was OK. It concluded that this problem peaked in the 1970s – a
time when there was far less industrial activity in the region than today.
There was no LNG export industry, and therefore not one of the world’s largest
LNG processing facilities. But there was a relatively small gas power plant.
The WA government summary – backed by the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation –
suggested this was likely the major cause of the problem, and that pollutant
levels have declined over the past decade.
The scientific report behind the summary was 800 pages long and it took some
time for people to digest it. Once they had, concerns were raised. Benjamin
Smith, an archaeology professor at the University of Western Australia, said
data in the report suggested local acidic pollution was actually four times
higher now than when Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser were running the country.
He claimed scientists who worked on the report were being gagged so they
couldn’t raise their concerns about how their data was being interpreted.
Not long after, the
ABC released details of an email complaint from Adrian
Baddeley, the chief statistician who worked on the rock art monitoring,
accusing WA government officials of removing some information from a graph in
the summary, and adding a claim that current pollution levels are “lower than
the interim guideline levels”.
Baddeley said the five monitoring sites closest to industrial development were
experiencing pollution levels above a guideline level, and claimed there was
“unacceptable interference in the scientific integrity of the project”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
