We’re crying out here that there's something in our water

But it may already be in a place near you.

"DR MARCUS SCAMMELL, MARINE ECOLOGIST: Every time we took a water sample test in that catchment the water came back toxic."

..."St Marys is surrounded by natural forest. And we’ve found no evidence of toxicity in the St Marys catchment. However in the St Helens catchment directly below this monoculture of plantation trees, we had permanently present toxin."

...."DR MARCUS SCAMMELL, MARINE ECOLOGIST: The timber companies themselves refer to these as genetically improved. They don’t say how they’re improved."

..."DR CHRIS HICKEY, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF WATER AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH,NZ: The Tasmanian trees generated a lot more foam and this foam was a lot more stable than the Victorian leaves. The significance of this is that... in that the toxin is carried in the foams - this is the mode by which the toxin can be transferred within the catchment and moved down the river system and into an estuarine environment."

...."DR CHRIS HICKEY, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF WATER AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH,NZ: We wouldn't see this necessarily in the laboratory or even expect to sort of look for this sort of effect. You're only going to see it once you get things on a very large scale monoculture. It's a classic case of potential unintended circumstances, unintended effects from something that’s on a large scale like plantation forestry. ..."

"....DR CHRIS HICKEY, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF WATER AND ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH,NZ: Since our original experiments we designed a second series of experiments whereby we would chemically analyse both leaf material from eucalyptus nitens and foam material, and then follow that up with bioassays with both our fresh water cladocerans and our blue mussels. So this is some sort of forensic toxicology work that we’re doing. What we’ve been able to do is come very close to showing that there’s a common chemical fraction in both the eucalyptus nitens leaves and in the toxicity in the foams. So from that we really feel we’re very close to being able to confirm that the eucalyptus nitens is the primary source of toxicity in the foams. We just haven’t been able to actually get down to the final fingerprinting and molecular weight determinations which will give us our final linkage to the eucalyptus nitens..."[1]

In June 2009 the World rainforest reported that a large global corporation called 'ArborGen' was planning to release genetically engineered tree products in the US and Brazil.

"This is a major step toward the unregulated commercial release of large-scale plantations of GE eucalyptus trees.[2]"

However, from the comments made by Dr Chris Hickey above, it looks like this disastrous genie is already out of the bag - whether the trees are genetically improved/engineered or not. Giant Eucalyptus (and other) monocultures have been planted across immeasurably huge land areas, particularly across the southern hemisphere. This has been organised and carried out by global 'forest' companies, in league with governments, over the last 15 years in particular.

The scale of these monocultures, is sufficient in itself, to generate unnatural buildup of toxins in the drinking water catchments where they have been planted.

Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know... that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. [ ... ] The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy.

(Morpheus, in Wachowski and Wachowski 1999)

REFERENCES
[1] Something In The Water Part 2 - Transcript
PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT: Monday, 22 February , 2010
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2007/s2827178.htm

[2] Arborgen Seeks to Legalize GE Eucalyptus Trees in U.S. -Brazil is Not Far Behind
“Eucalyptus is the perfect neoliberal tree. It grows quickly, turns a quick profit in the global market and destroys the earth.”—Jaime Aviles, La Jornada
http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/143/GE_Eucalyptus.html