In another major waterfront battle , the Townsville Murdoch paper recently called in the mighty U.S. Navy in an attempt to blow out of the water yet another group exercising their democratic right to object to a project which will affect Magnetic Island and the Great Barrier Reef ... dredging the Port of Townsville to enable it to take bigger vessels.
In doing so , the paper, claiming to be YOUR VOICE IN THE NORTH , despite a track record of belittling organisations, groups or individual having a contrary view to alleged lucrative , you beaut projects like Adani , made modern American naval commanders appear to be timid compared to their brave WW11 counterparts .
In doing so , the paper, claiming to be YOUR VOICE IN THE NORTH , despite a track record of belittling organisations, groups or individual having a contrary view to alleged lucrative , you beaut projects like Adani , made modern American naval commanders appear to be timid compared to their brave WW11 counterparts .
On P4 of the Bulletin on July 18 was a story headed US NAVY VESSELS HESITANT TO BERTH. It claimed two US Navy ships "are refusing to dock at Port Townsville ." Why ? Because , according to the report, the channel is too narrow , sparking concerns for the future of tourism and the defence gateway .
However, the story muddied somewhat as you read on ...Appearing to have inside info , a leak perhaps , the Bulletin said it " understands" the captains of the two supply ships Charles Drew and Richard E.Byrd , were "too uncomfortable " to come alongside , one of them anchored instead off Magnetic Island .
But what was the meaning of this puzzling following paragraph: The supply logistics vessels entered the port earlier this month . This could be interpreted that there was no problem in respect of the channel on that occasion . Yeah, but no, but yes .
This situation ( whatever it is ) , said the paper , came a month after the State government committed $75million to widen the channel, work that would be completed by 2022.
The Port chief executive officer Ranee Crosby was quoted as saying there had been berthing applications for the Richard E. Byrd , but they had been cancelled ..." Feedback we received was the width of the channel leading into the port was considered very narrow and the captain preferred to anchor and use tender equipment . " On and on went the report , the Department of Defence not making any comment .
Naturally, the Bulletin ran an associated editorial broadside under the heading US NAVY PUTS PORT SHORTFALL IN SHARP FOCUS, in which it was claimed the situation (if it really existed ) was no less than an embarrassment on the world stage for Townsville, needing to be rectified as soon as possible . The dredge spoil would be moved to land and the Great Barrier Reef would not be affected, it thundered .
Furthermore , there was a cartoon showing a defence vessel named ECONOMIC BOOST blocked from entering the port , some gob on the bow wanting to know how much longer he had to wait before he could come alongside and get into the rum and Coca Cola with the local girls, throw his dollars about, feed the widespread cargo cult reporting in Queensland papers in respect of cruise and visiting military ships .
This coverage was clearly designed to bombard into submission those persons , especially on Magnetic Island , already belittled as noisy , and outspoken , in a previous report.
This coverage was clearly designed to bombard into submission those persons , especially on Magnetic Island , already belittled as noisy , and outspoken , in a previous report.
But no . Out of the media smokescreen thrown up about Townsville on many issues , bearing down on the Bulletin like the famous WWll battleship USS Missouri came Magnetic Island respected resident, H.O. "Charlie" McColl , with a very slight Viking connection , who fired a letter at the editor, which clearly sank the paper. It was run by the Bulletin with a photograph of the aircraft carrier USS Boxer in Townsville bearing the high explosive caption : No Issues. Which seems to completely destroy the original Bulletin story and cartoon . Nevertheless , the paper went for a confrontational heading on the letter , DREDGING UP DIVISION, which read :
The commanders of the USNS ships Charlie E. Byrd and Charles Drew who are said to be "uncomfortable " about berthing at the Port of Townsville must be cut from different cloth from their forebears.
Their 210m long Lewis and Clarke-class supply ships, fitted with bow thrusters and assisted by tugs, are babies compared with some of the regular port users .
For instance our oft-seen HMAS Canberra and Adelaide (230m) are in and out in a flash (if their engines are functioning properly( ahem !) and the mighty USS Boxer (257m) docked here for a high time in 2005 with no mention of channel safety issues.
It makes me wonder whether the managers of the port are cynically misusing a contrived situation to create a false sense of inadequacy in the port at a critical moment in the development approval process? Remember the port expansion project requires years of destructive dredging and reclamation (i.e. long term turbidity and sedimentation of World Heritage Cleveland Bay ) but also thousands of truck journeys through the streets of Townsville bringing upwards of one million tonnes of rock for breakwaters and revetment walls for 150 hectares of reclaim .
And at the end of it , a 14 per cent increase in maintenance dredging , all of which will be sea dumped in Cleveland Bay next to Magnetic Island and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park .
After back to back bleaching events and a 50 per cent decline in coral cover on the GBR , I wonder if our caring and courteous American allies have any idea how inconvenient and unsustainable their claimed (or labelled ) discomfort really is ?
UPCOMING : The battle to save Magnetic Island . What about Cairns where dredging is also planned ? Growing , widespread opposition , across the nation , to Adani .
