Councillor Chris Harris

The technology now exists to allow us to massively cut our greenhouse gas emissions, as I hope has become apparent from my many previous posts on this topic.  Renewable and low emissions energy technology has advanced so much in the last few years that the barriers against their widespread uptake, and against the replacement of dirty and inefficient coal fired power, are no longer technological but political.

One only need look at the pathetic attempts by both the Labor and Liberal parties over recent months to pass off a 5% reduction in emissions as meaningful action on climate change to know that the political will is nowhere to be seen in the major parties.

It has therefore fallen upon individuals to take responsibility for this most pressing of issues and next week I will attempt to use my role as a councillor to make it easier for indivduals to markedly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

I will be moving a motion that Council call for expressions of interest from providers of low emissions power production systems, such as solar or trigeneration technology.  Council will assess the technologies on offer from the providers and promote those deemed most appropriate to the City’s rate base and possibly offer a rate rebate (at the provider’s expense) to residents who install the chosen systems.

It’s a win win situation.  Residents get cheaper access to low emissions technologies which have been assessed as being reliable by the City.  The provider gets significant promotion of their product for free, which will likely more than offset their losses from providing a rebate.  The City gets to reduce emissions produced within the Local Government Area which will help it reach it’s 2030 environmental performance targets and ultimately we all win through inhabiting a slightly cleaner, greener planet.

This motion will be going to Council on the 26th of July and I hope the other Councillors will be able to act where state and federal governments have failed and support this important endeavour. 

Update:  My motion was enthusiastically seconded by Lord Mayor Clover Moore and supported unanimously by the Council.

Opponents of renewable energy love to trot out the tired old line that it can’t provide baseload power.  This statement has been incorrect for many years and as technology continues to develop (despite the pathetic investment made in this area by both state and Federal governments) the ability of renewables to meet all our power needs continues to grow.

One of the most exciting areas of development is in the field of solar thermal electricity generation, which I have previously discussed here.  Very briefly, solar thermal power captures energy from the sun to produce heat to boil water which turns a turbine, in the same way as a conventional power station uses the heat from burning coal to turn a turbine.  The big advantage of solar thermal power over other forms of renewable energy generation, such as wind and solar photovoltaic (which generates electricity directly from sunlight via a chemical process) is that the energy produced can be easily stored.  Heat generated from sunlight can be contained in insulated storage units for several days, to be released to produce electricity when it is needed, including at night and on cloudy days.

Solar thermal electricity generation has already shown what it can do in large projects like the massive Andasol power plant in Spain.  Currently two thirds complete this plant already produces 100 MW of power for the local electricity grid and when completed in 2011 will save 450 000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere per year.  Such projects make an enormous contribution to improving sustainability but require a significant investment from governments – an investment which state and Federal governments in Australia are sadly unprepared to make.

Is there some way that individuals or local councils can take advantage of this exciting new technology in the absence of government leadership?  

Very soon there will be.

Work by an Australian company, to be officially announced in coming weeks, will make solar thermal power generation accessible to individuals with small scale generators capable of being installed on homes.  Equipped with insulated water tanks able to store heat - and therefore electricity generating potential - for up to three days, these systems will be able to produce more than twice the average household’s electricity needs.  Any electricity produced beyond what is used can be sold back to the grid.

Such technologies show that the tired old arguments of those opposed to renewable energy because of their own vested interests no longer hold any water.  I will be working to encourage the City of Sydney to install solar thermal power systems, along with a number of other sustainable energy technologies, in council owned buildings so that their potential can be demonstrated and independently assessed.  Ultimately I would like to see the City partner with the producers of whichever systems are shown to be most effective at reducing emissions in order to facilitate a roll-out of these to as many homes in the city as possible.  I look forward to working with staff over the coming months to make this happen and contribute to helping prevent dangerous climate change in a way that our governments are failing to do.
 

Sydney Harbour runs a tight race with Uluru to take the title of Australia’s most iconic and recognisable feature and likely has as bigger role in bringing tourism revenue to our country.  However, while Uluru is protected by a National Park, World Heritage Declaration and joint management with the traditional owners of the land Sydney Harbour gets used as a dumping ground by industry and surrounding suburbs and has it’s shoreline carved up by greedy developers aided by a complicit state government. 

It hardly seems fair.

My Greens colleagues in state and federal parliment have fought long and hard to protect our waterways, Sydney Harbour included.  I have always supported this fight but the contributions I have been able to make in my role as a Councillor have been modest as Councils have little direct influence over marine environments.  They control land only down the to the low watermark and in central Sydney many areas of the foreshore are controlled by state Government bodies, such as the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority and the Barangaroo Delivery Authority.

So when I came across some innovative research being carried out by a group of Australian scientists with the potential to dramatically improve the health of our local waters, in an area over which Council has direct control, I was most excited.

The research, being carried out by the Centre for Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities (EICC) at the University of Sydney, involves attaching concrete flowerpots to seawalls in the intertidal zone to serve as artifical habitats for marine life.  Around 50% of the shoreline of the harbour is now seawalls, which replaced the natural sloping rocky shores that would have originally been home to a myriad of fish, crustaceans, molluscs and algae.  The seawalls don’t provide a suitable habitat for these organisms, which form an integral part of the marine ecosystem, and the negative effects on biodiversity that this causes are more significant than the effects of poor water quality - given how bad water quality is in the harbour this shows how serious the issue is.

The flowerpots serve as artificial rockpools and the results of trials carried out on the north side of the harbour have been stunning.  Within 6-12 months of being set up the number of species in the vicinity of the flowerpots tripled and biodiversity increased seven-fold.  The next stage in the research is to test what effect different types of concrete have on the results and a motion I moved at the last Council meeting, which was passed unanimously, will see the City of Sydney look at ways to partner with the EICC to conduct these trials.

I expect the benefits of this project to be not just environmental but also social.  It will give kids of the inner City the opportunity to partake in the quintessential childhood experience of searching for life in rockpools and give nature lovers of all ages so much more to appreciate on the harbour foreshore.  It is a solid step towards helping people to reconnect with our magnificent waterway.

I hope that a productive partnership between the City and the EICC can result and that this will be the first of many steps undertaken by Council over the coming months to improve the health of Australia’s most well known and well loved waterway. 

For more information on the artificial habitat research being undertaken by the EICC see the following videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mJPS9dX9uU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuDmTVHKi40&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4QVPfL4HEs&feature=related

Despite making numerous commitments to sustainability, Fraser’s have failed to control environmentally damaging stormwater runoff from their redevelopment of the Carlton United Breweries site on Broadway (see images).  Below is a media release on the matter that I sent out last week.  Many thanks to local sustainability expert Michael Mobbs for bringing this matter to my attention and for this article he recently published on the topic.  

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Greens Councillor Chris Harris wants the City of Sydney to issue a please explain to the Frasers Property Group after torrents of sediment laden storm water were seen leaving their development at the Carlton United Breweries (CUB) site on Broadway during recent heavy rain.  Clr Harris says that the stormwater pollution, which overflowed from the site into gutters and street drains leading to Blackwattle Bay, is completely at odds with the claims of sustainability that Fraser’s have repeatedly used in relation to the development.

Several years ago Fraser’s committed to a number of sustainability goals following litigation, organised by Clr Harris and commenced by Matthew Drake Brockman – a Sydney Law student.  Cr Harris: “These goals included the capture and recycling of rainwater from the site but Fraser’s failure to effectively manage the recent torrent of pollution casts a cloud over whether they are really serious about this. 

“It’s disappointing to see that Fraser’s feel the sustainability goals they committed to don’t yet matter because the development isn’t yet completed. It may take up to 15 years to complete and I don’t think the environment is going to wait.

“The fact that the development isn’t yet complete won’t make a lick of difference to the marine environments of Blackwattle Bay that received several million litres of sediment laden stormwater from the bare dirt at the site over the last few weeks.  Who knows what contaminants this torrent contains?  I also worry about whether or not the rain caused the heritage sewer line that runs through the site to overflow, adding raw sewage to the stormwater that Fraser’s failed to stop.” 

Clr Harris said that plans for the construction of a massive new stormwater drain prompted further questions about Fraser’s intentions for the project. 

Cr Harris: “In May this year Fraser’s announced that they were going to spend 6-7 months, working 7 nights a week, to build a new stormwater drain along 200m of Abercrombie Street.  Six months to build 200m of drain makes me think that this must be one hell of a drain.  Why would a site that’s going to be capturing most of it’s rainwater need such a huge drain?”

“Fraser’s claim to have put in additional silt traps and redirected runoff in response to the heavy rain, but attached photos show that this work was either too little, too late or both.  The same goes for the site’s holding pond, which is far too small to be effective.  “Both these examples show that the planning work put in to ensure that the site was sustainable during construction was inadequate.” Clr Harris said.

“A true commitment to sustainability starts when the first sod is turned.  It doesn’t mean you wait around for a decade while you finish building before you clean up your act.  I’ll be keeping a close eye on the CUB site now and will make sure any further episodes like this aren’t swept under the rug.” Clr Harris said.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s exclusion of Councillors from meetings is undemocratic.  Below is a media release I sent out today detailing how her recent uncooperative approach to meeting times is unfair and exclusionary. 

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City of Sydney Greens Cr Chris Harris was critical of undemocratic action by the Lord Mayor Clover Moore who deliberately reduced Greens representation at Committees of the City of Sydney on Tuesday June 15th. Clover Moore Party members used their majority to amend the date of June’s Council meeting to 21st June so that Ms Moore could preside over the meeting as well as attend a council funded trip to China on the originally scheduled meeting date of 28th June. The Committee meeting was then rescheduled to Tuesday 15th June.  However the new Committee date excludes Harris’ fellow Greens Councillor Irene Doutney from the committee as well as Labor’s only representative Cr Meredith Burgmann.

“Councillor Doutney planned an overseas trip several months ago and arranged it so as to avoid her personal activities interfering with her duties on Council.”  Cr Harris said.  “For the Lord Mayor to turn around and arrogantly move the Committee dates with a few weeks notice is outrageous especially given that Ms Moore received her invitation to visit China in October 2009.”

Both Greens Councillors wrote to the Lord Mayor requesting that the meetings be moved to a date that would allow them both to attend. However their letters were ignored and the Lord Mayor failed to respond to either Greens member. 

Clr Harris said: “At the council meeting I attempted to amend the motion to leave the Committee meeting where it was and simply move the Council meeting forward to Friday 25th. This would have allowed both Greens to participate and would have accommodated Ms Moore who was scheduled to fly out of Sydney on 27th June. Ms Moore offered no explanation and simply used her numbers to ram what she wanted through. Now the Committee meeting, which members of the public are able to address, will be on a Tuesday instead of the usual Monday and this may exclude community members as well.”

“This is just the latest in a series of very telling signs that the power of having a majority on Council has gone to Ms Moore’s head.  There was no reason given, not even an acknowledgement, other ideas & suggestions were simply ignored”