Rock art expert breaks silence over Burrup emissions study controversy
A leading statistician on an emissions study into an ancient West Australian rock art site has spoken supporting an 800-page report, days after blasting WA bureaucrats for 'unacceptable interference' by altering a graph in a separate summary of that report.
The report on monitoring of industrial emissions near the site on the Burrup Peninsula in the state's north-west was released last Friday, and lauded by industry and the Cook government as proof that modern industrial emissions were not currently impacting the ancient petroglyph images carved into the site's striking rock landforms.
That conclusion was rubbished by world-renowned rock art expert Ben Smith, who said the 800-page report showed the opposite.
The Murujuga rock art monitoring program is a $27 million joint effort between Curtin University scientists, Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation and the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.
Its release came days before Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt approved a 40-year extension to the life of Woodside's North West Shelf assets – among which are a gas plant releasing some of the emissions being monitored.
The report was published alongside an eight-page summary featuring graphs showing benchmark levels for acceptable pollution on the Burrup.
The ABC reported Curtin University Emeritus Professor Adrian Baddeley, who was the report's chief statistician, complained in an email to DWER on Tuesday that one of those graphs had been altered on the summary.
The alteration removed a line showed in the main report, showing an early warning threshold of pollution on the Burrup.
Baddeley, who told a pro-Palestine rally at Curtin last May universities had become 'more corporate, much more authoritarian, much more coercive' wrote to the government department:
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