Ah yes the good old “what’s up with my gonads” trick.

Flashback to the heady days of the defunct “Pulp Mill Taskforce” and the vivacious CDRom that selected, perhaps “fence sitting” households received as part of the doctor’s massive spin campaign.

It could have been Launceston’s “Seaport” area, or indeed Salamanca.
Fun amid friendly Fins as they gleefully tilted their heads backward, swallowing the titbits of fish taken from places like Lake Saimaa.

Plenty of laughter, sun and sails hid the truth about Lake Saimaa and other fisheries.

Reported black liquor spills and other toxic releases including compensation payouts are just the beginning.

Now I am a normal sort of bloke and am quite happy with my manly bits, but the demonstrated shrinking effect on gonads is not something I would care to experience, unlike the poor fish that have no such say in the matter.

They just happily swim about in “beer coloured” water watching things shrivel up.

Indeed the survivors of one spill that wiped out half of the fish biomass within a three kilometre radius of the pulp mill would have been glad that they were a little more womanly rather than be swallowed up in toxic swill, but perhaps not.

Cross to East’s Beach Sunday 18th January 2009.

A windy day, but the azure water and the rolling dunes covered in rich dark green vegetation is an inspiring contrast to the sky so blue it just doesn’t seem real.
White caps chuffed by the wind are so white and I am cursing myself for leaving my camera behind.

Looking east, I realise that this place is only a few kilometres from the proposed effluent outlet of one of the biggest pulp mills in the known universe.

I look down at the water that is lapping the bottom of my shorts and ponder it as the industry described “beer coloured”….imagine lots of little “floaties” as I watch schools of bait fish, perhaps whiting or mullet scoot around my legs and glide through the glassy face of wind whipped waves.

I imagine being submersed in the copious chemical afterbirth of native forest destruction and the shrinking jewel collection.

Are these people mad? What are they thinking?

To dump anything into Bass Strait is purely criminal and an affront to our environment.
Why do our laws support this travesty?

If I owned a house and decided to point my sewage “outfall” into my neighbour’s property as a way to rid myself of my waste and I could find a way for “the law” to support my action, would that make it OK?

It’s time to end this mill burden and the accompanying evil plan to obliterate our fragile and struggling environment.

For now the family heirlooms are safe, but only till our leaders contemplate their feminine side and decide how far they would be prepared to take their “SNAG” status.
Will they end this divisive debacle or will they only go in the water up to their knees?

The next act of the show has begun.