Tassie Hydro

We have moved into South West Wilderness country. It’s easy to see from the roadside propaganda evidence of the ongoing struggle for the future of these lands. Forestry and Hydro currently have the upper hand, with forestry advertising the jobs and uses made of the forests (wood and paper), and proudly showing off the sections of old growth left behind. The cynical would say that these parts are the forests that contain many old trees too large to economically extract and in many cases old, dying and rotten. These forests are regenerated in large part by fires and one part hadn’t had a fire for 400 years, and that is about the life of a swamp gum, and in fact all of the big trees in this area are shrinking as they die from the top down.

As for hydro, there is no doubting the appeal. Flush from the success of the Snowy Mountains scheme in the 50s and 60s, planners looked to Tasmania with its vast unpopulated high areas with 3 metres of rain a year falling on 250 wet days. These were frontier times and the urge to conquer was strong. A workforce of 2000 constructed a series of dams to make lake Gordon in the 1970s. The country was remote and harsh. Unrelenting cold and rain made life a challenge, with the town boasting the first of Australia’s indoor heated sports facilities. The Gordon dam has become Australia’s biggest concrete arch dam and biggest water storage. Two hydro turbines  turned out 300MW of electricity and the project was a success.

So if that much was good, more is better right? Creating Lake Pedder would increase the storage by 40% and allow installation of another turbine. However, Lake Gordon had aroused an environmental movement, and the prospect of a greatly enlarged Lake Pedder would stir them into action. The ensuing fight would ultimately be lost, with the pristine original Lake Pedder now dwarfed and drowned under the hugely expanded hydro version. Its ringing white beaches and stands of Huon Pine lost forever.

But, the green movement, led by Bob Brown and others, was mobilised. Another series of dams planned has yet to be implemented and environmental issues now feature in the debate about this area, in a way not heard before. Forestry are fighting for their future in a debate which is now international in scope. As I have often said before, the winners get to write the history, and forestry, being incumbent, have advertising rights in these lands.  Ironically, the only reference to the environmental struggle comes on a tribute plaque placed by the institute of engineers marking the engineering marvel that is the dam. It refers to the controversial flooding of Lake Pedder.

The astute among you will realise I’ve skipped a day. All of that hydro country desirability has turned it on making camping a challenge at best. While Brisbane swelters in 38, we have had 8 degrees and rain. Last night the kids tent got erected in a watercourse which has given rise to today’s series of challenges.