Golden Beach and its neighbour, Paradise Beach. Both towns sit beside one another and form part of the Ninety Mile Beach in Gippsland, Victoria. Both towns are quiet, at last Census in 2016 the average age of residents was 60, there are around 750 homes approximately ¾ of which are holiday homes. We are currently fighting a battle with organisations called CarbonNet and AGR Australia P/L. The CarbonNet project is investigating commercial scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) just off the coast of Golden Beach.
We are taking a stand against plans for CCS for a number of reasons:
- The government refusal to move away from coal and into renewables
- Millions of taxpayer dollars already wasted on Carbon Capture over the past 10+ years with seemingly nothing to show for this
- Risks to the environment and community with leakage
- Decades of ongoing monitoring into future generations, of which will further tax payer dollars will be wasted
- We dispute that this idea will meet global warming targets as it will create more emissions for this to work, not less
Whilst the local media has been following this story, we need something bigger now, and more help letting the world know of our plight. We find it interesting that such a small sleepy town is the target for these plans, highly convenient that there is considered to be a rock base just off Golden beach, CarbonNet finding has capacity to store the Carbon.
Investigations are currently in process, we have had Seismic Survey Testing earlier this year, with further Seismic Testing planned over a 15,000km stretch over a 5 month period, beginning in October 2018. Communication with the community to date has been minimal and effects of this testing has been significantly downplayed by CarbonNet executives who have previously advised community members we would not notice Seismic Testing, members instead formally reported complaints of illness, affects to dogs and property damage. All complainants are still awaiting formal response from CarbonNet along with inspections on property.
CCS planning at Golden Beach has been known by the local council (Wellington Shire) for many years, though never communicated or advised to ratepayers. Only since the town has formed a small committee demanding adequate communication to the community on the project, has there been some improvement with this. We will continue to protest against these plans.
You can find more information about our Community group on Facebook here and our Website here.