A Southern Christmas 2001 - Day 10 (Thala Valley)

So on to Day 10 of these Antarctica travels. 

The entry for Christmas Day 2001 was quite short, and concentrated on the main purpose of our visit which was to carry out the Casey waste clean-up. I was unashamedly enthusiastic in discussing the far-sightedness of the Australian Government in making things happen to clean up the environmental carelessness of past years. 

The process is still underway in 2024, and although it's taking a little longer than we might have hoped for then, I'm reminded of the words from a little film we made at the time from Dr Martin Riddle who was in charge of human impact studies: "It's going to take years."

Tuesday 25^th December 2001

Casey Base

Late yesterday, having recovered from our exciting morning in the IRBs, and with cargo unloading well and truly underway, Yann and I went ashore again, this time to have a look at the Thala Valley tip site.

The old Thala Valley tip is within the Casey Station limits, in a small valley running into Browns Bay, itself a small inlet forming part of Newcomb Bay. It was used for about 20 years starting some time around 1965 has about 3,000 tonnes of waste, all of which is to be removed and returned to Australia as part of an international agreement known as the Madrid Protocol. As I in an earlier entry, the volume of waste at Thala Valley represents about one tenth of the problem at Wilkes.

The reason there is so much less residual waste at Thala Valley than Wilkes (which was in operation for a much shorter period) was the early practice of icing the waste. This entailed dumping the waste on the thick sea ice of the bay during the winter period and letting it sink into the bay during the summer melt. Out of sight, out of mind.

It has to be said that it is easy now in 2001 to condemn the practices of those earlier expeditioners, but also very unfair. These activities took place long before Rachel Carson and her classic, Silent Spring made the world sit up and take more notice of the environment and the practices at Antarctica were little different to any of those carried out at that time by any municipal council anywhere in Australia, or other parts of the world. We understand so much more now and the Australian Government is to be applauded for its initiative in mounting this clean-up operation as part of its Treaty obligations.

The Thala Valley site will provide important information before the main clean up at Wilkes commences. A few years ago, when the decision was first taken to clean up the Thala Valley site, the bulldozers were moved in, and the clean-up was started with enthusiasm. It was soon noticed that the clean-up was in danger of causing more harm than good, as runoff waters and leachate plumes began to appear. During the thaw a small river runs through the valley and without due care, the river carries the waste residue and leachate straight into the bay.

A diversion for the river has been built and the first project of next summer will be to install a leachate treatment and collection system and impermeable gabion walls which will prevent run off causing more damage to the bay.

Yann and I, and our colleagues in Australia and France are excited to be involved in this initiative and I'm looking for the next few years as the cleanup progresses at Thala Valley and at WIlkes.