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Tasmania fumes over media misconduct

By Mark Poynter - posted Wednesday, 7 July 2010


Contrary to extraordinary claims made on ABC television earlier this year, it has now been confirmed that timber plantations are not polluting the water supply and causing health problems in and around the Tasmanian township of St Helens.

This was the central finding of the George River Water Quality Panel which released its Final Report on June 29, 2010. The panel of expert scientists was appointed to investigate allegations raised in a double-episode of Australian Story entitled, “Something in the Water”, which was screened just weeks before Tasmania’s March state election in which forestry issues were, as usual, a major point of contention.

“Something in the Water” told the story of Tasmanian country GP, Dr Alison Bleaney who, in conjunction with marine scientist, Dr Marcus Scammell, was endeavouring to prove a hypothesis that plantations of shining gum (Eucalyptus nitens) were releasing toxins into the George River from which St Helens draws its water supply.

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The program sparked an at times hysterical reaction in Tasmania where there are more than 200,000 ha of eucalypt plantations, including substantial areas of E.nitens growing in catchments used for domestic water supply. It also raised concerns in Australia’s southern mainland states where E.nitens grows naturally and has also been widely established in timber plantations.

However, no sooner had it been screened than “Something in the Water” was condemned for ignoring or omitting key factors and inconvenient truths that would otherwise have put the threat of plantation forestry into its proper perspective. These included:

  • Ignoring Dr Bleaney’s history of activism which would have enabled viewers to conclude that her admirable concern for human health is at least matched by a long-standing determination to prove that Tasmania’s plantation sector is responsible for what she perceives to be higher than normal rates of human cancers.
     
  • Failing to acknowledge the small extent of plantations in the George River catchment (occupying just 3 to 4 per cent of its area and situated at least 25km from St Helens) thereby misleading viewers to believe that the town is surrounded by a substantial concentration of plantations.
     
  • Failing to fully explain the history of the St Helens water issue which would have allowed viewers to appreciate that the Tasmanian Government has responded to Drs Bleaney and Scammell’s claims from as far back as 2004, including their commissioning of an independent review by a University of Queensland academic which found no cause for alarm.
     
  • Failing to explain that government testing of the river system in February 2005, which found safe levels of toxicity due to natural organic compounds, was based on comparing samples taken downstream of the plantations with a sample taken from a natural bush catchment upstream of the plantations.
     
  • Failing to acknowledge the potential threat to the water supply from non-forestry land uses in the George River catchment. This includes a significantly greater proportion used for agriculture and so subject to far more regular disturbance and more frequent pesticide use.
     
  • Misrepresenting the state of public health in St Helens and surrounding areas by relying primarily on the views of Dr Bleaney despite the Tasmanian Director of Public Health commissioning an independent review of her patient files by a Monash University academic which, in 2005, found no evidence of abnormally high rates of cancer.
     
  • Failing to report that the latest annual report published by the Tasmanian Cancer Registry showed no statistically significant differences in the incidence rates of common cancers for persons living in the Break O’Day municipality (which includes the St Helens region), compared to Tasmania as a whole.
     
  • Failing to report that stream health is routinely monitored in Tasmania with annual reporting of water quality and quarterly reporting of pesticide contamination. After five years of published results, pesticides have only ever been detected at trace levels, with nothing exceeding the levels required of safe drinking water.
     
  • Creating an impression of Drs Bleaney and Scammell battling against government indifference to their concerns which is at odds with their appointment to a Community Consultative Committee on Water Quality established and funded since 2005 as part of the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement.
     
  • Neglecting to mention that Eucalyptus nitens is naturally-occurring in Melbourne’s water supply catchments which supply more than 4 million people with what is widely acknowledged to be some of the world’s highest quality water.
     
  • Implying that genetic improvement of Eucalyptus nitens plantation trees is responsible for their toxicity to humans thereby allowing viewers to conclude that plantation trees have been “genetically modified” by grafting in genes from other organisms. In reality, desirable traits of E.nitens plantation trees have been improved over several generations by selective tree breeding which involves no alteration of genetic profiles.
     
  • Failing to include the views of an interviewed scientist who has found that the leaf toxicity of natural Eucalyptus nitens stands in Victoria is significantly higher than that of Tasmania’s E.nitens plantations. This would also have prevented speculation that genetic improvement of plantation trees had increased their toxicity.
     
  • Intimating that plantation management may be a factor in the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) in contravention of research by the Menzies Institute and the Save the Tasmanian Devil Program which had already shown that DFTD is not caused or influenced by the use of pesticides in the management of forestry plantations.

These numerous concerns about the veracity of the allegations raised by “Something in the Water” have now been effectively vindicated by the findings of the George River Water Quality Panel.

Of particular significance was the panel’s finding that the basis of the allegations raised by Drs Bleaney and Scammell was flawed by their use of an inappropriate water sampling technique. Their sampling methodology concentrated the level of naturally-occurring organic plant compounds by up to 1,400-times that at which they are normally present in aquatic ecosystems. Accordingly, the analysis of such concentrated water samples misrepresented compounds with a naturally negligible level of toxicity in stream water, as being highly toxic.

In view of the program’s many omissions, it is fair to conclude that the producers and journalists associated with Australian Story have demonstrably failed in their professional and ethical duty to research and report issues responsibly. If they had properly addressed all aspects of the St Helens water quality issue, they would have been unable to produce such a sensationalist program as “Something in the Water”. This would have spared Tasmania from the unwarranted community alarm which has ultimately been so costly.

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“Something in the Water” had been filmed some months earlier, but the ABC’s decision to screen it just weeks before the Tasmanian state election placed the incumbent Labor Government in an invidious position. Despite all that had been done in the previous six-years to investigate and virtually invalidate the St Helens water supply issue, this new bout of whipped-up fear demanded a response - failing to act would have been electoral suicide.

Accordingly, it was forced to immediately appoint the independent panel of expert scientists which became known as the George River Water Quality Panel. However, as the panel would be incapable of delivering its findings prior to the election, the government also immediately installed a carbon filter at the St Helens water treatment plant. Whether or not it believed this was required to make the water safe to drink, it was certainly needed to reassure panicky local residents that their government - especially in the lead-up to an election - was prepared to do whatever it takes to safe-guard their health.

While the Tasmanian government has estimated the combined cost of these measures to be a conservative $400,000, there have been other incalculable costs. These include a substantial loss of tourism to the region and a devastating loss of revenue for the region’s aquaculture industry due to the unsubstantiated fears spread by “Something in the Water”.

Perhaps though, the most critical cost associated with the program has been political given that the Greens’ vote rose substantially at the state election due in large measure to an anti-forestry fervor that was significantly enhanced by the prospect that timber plantations may be toxic. Indeed, the election was disastrous for Labor and saw it forced into an uncomfortable governing alliance with the Greens which may yet destabilise the state.

How much of this political fall-out is directly attributed to “Something in the Water” is impossible to assess. However, it is notable that senior Labor MP and Minister for Health, David Llewellyn - who was poorly portrayed in the program and was an incumbent in the electorate of Lyons, which embraces the St Helens region - lost his seat in the election held just weeks later.

It is also telling that the findings of the George River Water Quality Panel prompted the Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett, to put-out a press release calling for an apology from the ABC:

These two episodes of Australian Story caused fear and distress in the St Helens community, and damaged the town’s tourist reputation throughout Australia … Indeed the river was found to be in near pristine condition … Yet this poorly researched and alarmist program is still available on the ABC website … I have asked the ABC to remove the program from the website … In addition, I have asked the ABC to explain to viewers that the St Helens water story was based on wrong information and to apologise to the people of St Helens for the distress that it caused. June 30, 2010.

In response, the ABC’s Australian Story executive producer, Deborah Fleming, has defended the program’s editorial integrity: “Our story reported the concerns of reputable figures in the community and drew on various high-level scientific opinions.” Clearly though, in view of the shortcomings listed earlier in this article, the program’s research was far from thorough and its presentation far from balanced.

Ultimately, a retrospective on-air apology can never undo the damage caused once a poorly researched or biased television program is broadcast to a national audience. In this instance, the concept of plantations being toxic to human health was adopted by the environmental movement as soon as the program was screened and now features prominently in its on-going campaigns against Tasmania's (and the nation's) forestry sector.

A short apology cannot undo this because it has far less power than the original sensationalist allegations, and because environmental activism has a long history of continuing to misrepresent acknowledged truths with impunity to an unquestioning supporter base.

Sadly, this episode also reaffirms that elements of the media are prone to an unquestioning acceptance of the views of environmental activists. While “Something in the Water” is the most recent major example of this, there have been many others including the near hero-status afforded to celebrity forest activist Richard Flanagan (also on Australian Story), and anti-Gunns crusader, Geoffrey Cousins, on various ABC programs including Lateline and Q & A.

It is easy to dislike an activity that involves cutting down trees, but it should not be so hard to also engender a high level of acceptance of it if the community is properly informed about its community benefits, its actual scale and proportional extent compared to areas where trees will not be cut down, and its inherently high level of planning and regulation with regard to environmental values. Unfortunately, the ABC in particular, has shown a long-standing predilection to give minimal emphasis to these aspects in its coverage of forestry issues.

For example, Four Corners has a history of producing one-sided programs about forestry issues such as its “Lords of the Forest” episode in 2004, which was subsequently derided by the network’s own Independent Complaints Review Panel for containing “instances of serious bias, lack of balance and unfair treatment” of forestry viewpoints.

Similar instances are commonplace on the 7:30 Report and Stateline where the views of government and forest industry spokespersons are sought but often presented as little more than tokenism in articles based primarily around the views of environmental activists which are never going to provide viewers with a balanced or well-informed narrative of the issues.

However, it’s not only about content - program timing can also be a critical factor. As with “Something in the Water”, the Four Corners program, “Spies in the Forest”, was screened in October 2006, just six weeks prior to the last Victorian election in which the Greens were campaigning strongly to close the native timber industry. While this program was reasonably balanced, its deriding of the timber industry during an election campaign for events that had occurred seven to ten years earlier was again suggestive of inappropriate support for a political agenda.

Arguably, the failure of the media to at all times exercise objectivity, rigour and balance in the reporting of Tasmanian forestry issues has been the major contributor to maintaining a destructive conflict which continues to divide the island state. The media’s reluctance to fully utilise expertise that could easily defuse many of the issues being raised by forest activists should be of enduring concern to the wider community.

The St Helens water issue has followed the typical trajectory of media coverage of forestry issues whereby sensational and derogatory claims raised by environmental activism are widely and enthusiastically reported, followed by a subsequent reluctance to give equivalent time or space to government or industry views which could refute these claims or give them some perspective.

At the time of writing, the ABC has reported the findings of the George River Water Quality Panel in short news items and on its afternoon radio program, PM. This compares poorly against the one-hour of national television used to breathlessly promote unsubstantiated claims that have now been discredited. Surely, such an imbalance is unacceptable.

To redress this, the ABC must do far more than just apologise for unprofessional conduct. A nationally-televised program, such as Four Corners, is needed to tell the whole story of how the claims arose, were hijacked to unnecessarily alarm the community, and have now been discredited by an independent scientific panel. Nothing less will suffice in undoing the damage that its Australian Story program has inflicted on Tasmania.

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About the Author

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 40 years experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and his book Going Green: Forests, fire, and a flawed conservation culture, was published by Connor Court in July 2018.

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