Dumping dredged material in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park will “place further pressure on an ecosystem under stress,” Australian Department of the Environment documents have predicted, amid uncertainty as to exactly where waste from the controversial Abbot Point port project will be deposited.
A departmental assessment of the Abbot Point dredging project, which was approved by Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt on Wednesday found that “mitigation measures” were needed to offset the impact of dumping 3 million cubic meters of sediment in the vicinity of the World Heritage-listed ecosystem.
The documents show that alternatives to offshore dumping “would involve significant expenditure” with North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP), the project overseer, estimating that onshore disposal would cost between US$120 million and US$460 million.
Illustration: Yusha
The department added that full environmental assessments of alternatives to offshore dredging had not been conducted, although this is disputed by NQPB. To offset the impact of the dredging, proponents will have to reduce the amount of pollution running onto the reef from the land.
Although Hunt’s approval allows the dumping of dredged material in an area within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, at a site about 24km from Abbot Point near Bowen, the project proponents are required to identify an alternative site, also likely to be within the marine park.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which is tasked with the preservation of the reef, will have to decide whether to provide a permit for the dumping within the next six days or request more time.
Conservationists have strongly criticized Hunt’s decision, which will open up Abbot Point to large-scale coal exports, claiming that it risks significant harm to the Great Barrier Reef.
“Even though Greg Hunt has approved the dredging there isn’t a clear plan for the dumping,” WWF reef campaigner Richard Leck said.
“It puts the marine park authority in an invidious position because they are being asked to provide a dumping permit not knowing where it will be. It’s a bit like getting approval to build an office block but not having an actual location for it,” Leck said.
“The minister claimed he has put the strictest conditions in history on this project, but it’s strange there is no detail on where 3 million cubic meters of sand and rock will be dumped. There will be enormous pressure on the marine park authority to allow this and we will be pushing them hard to reject it,” he added. NQBP said it investigated onshore disposal “in depth” and found that the dredged material was unsuitable for use on land. The company said offshore disposal in a “carefully chosen” location would result in only temporary impacts.
“The key to any dredging is the best outcome and onshore isn’t always the best way,” a spokeswoman for NQBP said. “The site won’t be near any areas of national significance and it will be around 40km from the nearest piece of coral.”
“We have dredged 22 times since 2002 and done months of modeling and looking at actual outcomes, so we’re pretty sure about this. Our experience speaks louder than anything,” she added.
Critics of the dredging argue that dumped material will smother seagrasses, depriving dugongs and sea turtles of food, as well as damaging coral. They point to government-commissioned advice that stated dredged material travels far further with ocean currents than was previously thought, although the marine park authority has since backed away from this conclusion.
The tourism industry has voiced concern that any further damage to the reef, which has lost half of its coral cover in the past 30 years, would be disastrous for local operators.
Tony Fontes, who has led diving expeditions on the reef for more than 30 years, said he was “disappointed and angry” at Hunt’s decision.
“The reef is clearly in decline and I think we are close to a tipping point,” he said.
“I have seen the impact of dredging in the Whitsundays that is miniscule compared to Abbot Point and it isn’t good. The dredged spoil resuspends and moves in extreme weather. It buries coral and cuts the sunlight out,” Fontes said.
“If the quality of diving and snorkeling declines, it will impact tourism. Also, what people aren’t focusing on is that this will expand the coal industry, which is the death knell for reefs around the world due to the amount of carbon being put into the air,” he added.
However, other business and political leaders have welcomed the expansion of Abbot Point with predictions that the development will create several thousand new jobs. The chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council, Michael Roche, said Hunt’s decision put Queenslanders ahead of “increasingly hysterical environmental activists.”
“Minister Hunt’s decision confirms what we have known for the past 38 years of industry coexistence with the reef,” he said. “We have the wherewithal in Australia to protect world heritage and environmental values because we have a standard of living that affords us such choices.”
Queensland Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney also welcomed the move, predicting it would “encourage growth in Queensland’s resources sector and underpin future jobs in the coal and coal seam gas sector.”
The facts on dredging
What is dredging?
Dredging is the excavation of sediments and disposing of them at a different location. Material is dug or gathered from the bottoms of rivers, lakes, harbors and the open sea via a number of methods, such as a giant scoop or high-pressure suction.
Various Australian waters have been dredged in the past, most notably Port Phillip Bay, overlooked by Melbourne and, more recently, locations off the Queensland coast such as Gladstone Harbour.
Why is it required?
Dredging is mainly used to either maintain the depth of ports or create new shipping channels. Large vessels require water of a certain depth to access these routes, so dredging is used to ensure they do not run aground.
Sometimes the sediment from dredging is used to “renourish” onshore areas, such as coastal areas subject to erosion.The debris collected is usually a mixture of sand, mud and rock.
In the case of Abbot Point, dredging will be used to expand what is essentially a simple jetty jutting out into the sea into one of the world’s largest coal ports.
Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt has approved dredging for three new port terminals, to be operated by a selection of Indian and Australian mining companies.
A total of 3 million cubic meters of seabed will be removed to allow vessels to access Abbot Point, with up to 300 million tonnes of coal shipped annually by 2020.
The coal, extracted from the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, will be sold to overseas markets such as China and India.
Why is it controversial?
Marine environments are complex. Removing large parts of the seabed and dumping it elsewhere can have a major impact on the ecosystem, particularly sensitive areas such as coral reefs and fish nurseries. Sediment can smother seagrasses, which are the key food source of dugongs and sea turtles, and damage corals.
The Australian federal government requires dredging companies to obtain a permit to dump sediment, stating that fragile areas need “a high level of protection and/or management.”
Despite the regulatory framework around dredging, environmentalists claim oversight has been lax, causing damage to marine creatures. Some activists want dredging to be banned completely, blaming it for releasing toxic chemicals, increasing water turbidity and littering harmful metals throughout the food chain.
The tone of this debate has sharpened markedly since mining companies’ recent attempts to open up the Queensland coast to coal exports.
Dredging at Gladstone Harbour has been extremely controversial, with critics claiming that a rushed, botched process saw sediment spill across the ecosystem, causing fish and crabs to develop lesions and die. Conservationists and recreational fishers have blamed dredging for killing fish at Gladstone, although a government report blamed floods, rather than dredging, for washing harmful nutrients into the area.
The argument has now relocated to Abbot Point near the town of Bowen. The Greens have called Hunt’s dredging approval “criminal,” while others fret that an increase in shipping will cause damage to the Great Barrier Reef itself, hurting the US$6 billion tourism industry that relies on the World Heritage-listed site. However, business and local council leaders have welcomed the expansion of Abbot Point, which they see as vital in creating jobs in a region that has stagnated economically.
What does the science say?
The Australian Department of Environment assessment of the Abbot Point project states that there is “no substantial risk” to the reef from increased shipping and concluded that dredged sediment is suitable for dumping in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP), which is overseeing the project, said it has conducted a “rigorous and robust” assessment of the risks, pointing out that its modeling shows no adverse impact to corals or fish. NQBP claims the science is on its side and that there is no unequivocal evidence that dredging, when conducted properly, is harmful to marine environments.
In August, the previous Labor government released a report it commissioned stating that spoil from dredging travels a lot farther than previously thought, with dumped sediment capable of being disturbed repeatedly by severe weather. However, the analysis does not rule out dumping dredged waste at sea and suggests various locations near existing ports that would do the least damage to coral and other marine wildlife.
The report was seized upon by environmentalists but the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority, which oversees the health of the reef, recently clarified the findings, pointing out that time constraints meant the report was simplified and should not be an indicator of absolute risk. Recent research by James Cook University found it was likely that dredge spoil is more harmful to marine ecosystems than sediment washed into the sea by rivers.
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