Posts from — April 2008

UPDATE: Smoke haze from burnoffs pushed Tasmania close to breaching air safety standards last week.

In one 24-hour period, emission levels from the forestry regeneration and fuel-reduction burns “were approaching the standard”, state environmental management director Warren Jones told the Sunday Tasmanian.

Elevated particle levels had been detected in Launceston and Hobart on several days during the week.

A Sunday Tasmanian investigation into the smoke haze has revealed:

Between 5000ha and 7000ha is earmarked for forestry regeneration burns this season. About 70,000ha of the state’s forest was razed by wildfire in the past summer.

The smoke contains a mix of carbon monoxide, tar, ash, ammonia and known carcinogens such as formaldehyde and benzene.

[From Sunday Tasmanian]

Photograph by Kevin Keirnan

A Tasmanian academic warns smoke generated from forest regeneration burns could pose a worse outcome for human health than pollution from car exhausts.

Fay Johnston, a respiratory health researcher with the Menzies Institute, has begun a four-year study on the health effects of wood and bushfire smoke.

The study will take in Tasmania, Western Australia as well as towns and cities in New South Wales.

Dr Johnston says smoke pollution has a detrimental effect for many people.

“In the limited amount of studies that have been done so far that have directly compared smoke from fires with the same level of particulates and smoke from car exhaust, or industry have all tended to show that the effects from the wood smoke are actually worse for lung conditions than a similar amount from, say, car exhausts,” she said.

The Asthma Foundation of Tasmania has refused to criticise the smoky burn-offs of the past week, saying it is not qualified nor the appropriate body to say whether they should or should not occur.

“We are not denying smoke can be harmful but we are not in the business of saying regeneration burning should or shouldn’t occur,” foundation chief executive officer Cathy Beswick said.

“Some people say we are not looking after the best interests of people with asthma, but we can’t become a lobby group.

“We get funding from a variety of sources and if we start talking about burn-offs without looking at the science, that could affect the funding for programs we do in the community.”

Ms Beswick said her organisation did not receive funding from the forestry industry.

[From Sunday Tasmanian]

Rowing Australia has named Brendan Long and Kerry Hore in the final Olympic squad, taking Tasmania’s Beijing contingent to 12, including three coaches and a paralympic athlete. Tasmanian Institute of Sport rowing coach, Ron Batt, says Tasmanians make up a considerable portion of the Australian team of 44 rowers.

A major earthquake (magnitude 7.4) hit 90km south of Macquarie Island this morning at 10:30am local time.

No tsunami was generated.

Macquarie Island is a subantarctic island and a part of the state of Tasmania, Australia.

Macquarie Island is on the Macquarie Ridge at the junction of the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates. Large earthquakes (6 or greater on the Richter scale) occur approximately once a year.

Vet Alex Kriess with Cedric the Tasmanian devil

A Tasmanian devil by the name of Cedric may hold the key to the future of his species.

He is an extraordinary devil, guinea pig and possible saviour, who is naturally resistant to the contagious facial tumours which have already killed half the devil population in Tasmania.

Cedric was caught by scientists this time last year. Now it seems he is the best chance yet scientists have to developing a devil-saving vaccine.

By working with their colleagues at Sydney University, Hobart scientists have discovered it is Cedric’s genes that are protecting him from the cancer.

This sea cucumber — held by Sadie Mills of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research — is known as a sea pig.

Mills and colleagues from around the world, including Tasmania, collected the organism, among more than 30,000 animals, during a marine census of southern Antarctica earlier this year.

Sea cucumbers are part of a group of marine animals that inhabit the seafloor, including sea squirts, sea stars (starfish), sea slugs, corals, clams, sponges, and urchins.

Tasmania’s Education Minister, David Bartlett, says high school students who left class to attend a protest in Hobart today were within their rights. About 100 students marched to the ANZ bank in Hobart’s Elizabeth Street Mall to protest against the ANZ’s potential backing of Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill.

Great Lake is at record low levels. (Andrew Fisher photograph. ABC)

Recent rain has done little to replenish Hyrdo’s Tasmania’s storages.

Storages fell to around 18 per cent over the summer period, the lowest in over 40 years, and Hydro’s energy resources manager, David Marshall, says the Basslink power cable and the gas-fired Bell Bay power station are being used extensively.

He says he does not expect power rationing this year.

Tasmanian drivers caught smoking in cars carrying children will cop an on-the-spot $120 fine from April 1. A three-month amnesty, which bans drivers and passengers smoking in vehicles while children under the age of 18 are present, ended at midnight.