Marine Campaigner

5 Free Double Passes to Give Away

This is your chance to attend South Australia's first screening of internationally acclaimed film, The End of the Line. The first five people to send me a message with their name & contact details will receive a free double pass.When: 2pm, Sunday 18th OctoberThis groundbreaking feature film documentary reveals the devastating impact of overfishing on the worlds oceans whilst offering a message of hope for the future. This special pre-release screening will feature a presentation and discussion forum on the benefits of marine parks in securing a healty future for our marine environment. Even if you don't agree with marine parks, or you're concerned about the impact they might have on your favourite fishing spot, this is a good opportunity to find out more.Hosted by The Wilderness Society SA.

Just a quick update - the Rann Government released its submission on BHP's EIS last week. Its contains a large number of concerns regarding the proposed desalination plant at Point Lowly.Follow this link for more information:http://www.olympicdameis.sa.gov.au/html/submissions.cfm

You sure can.As well as being a concerned citizen, I literally am the Marine Campaigner for The Wilderness Society in SA. I'm not a member of any political party. As for technical expertise, I have a commercial law background.I'm not a rec fisher myself but many of my friends and family are, and I am an eater of sustainable seafood. Informal discussions with a number of spencer gulf prawn fishermen led me to wonder how the rec fishing community felt about the desal plant.How about yourself?I've read your dialogue with Andy Burnell from DEH on the marine parks thread, which from what I can tell, has been really interesting and valuable for all involved.I'd be interested to hear how you and others feel about people like Andy and I popping up on these kind of forums?

I hope you're right Ranger. Note the ERD Committee has a cross-party constiutency i.e. Liberal, Labor, Green.See link to the committee's report below:www.parliament.sa.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/C84894BD-81FF-4C93-B18D-61C3700DE928/14354/64ReportDesalinationFinalPtBonython.pdfHappy reading!

Thanks for that Ranger, but don't rest easy just yet!!The ERD Committee's recommendation that BHP be required to look at alternative locations is a great start, but they are not the actual decision maker.The buck stops with the Minister and he is yet to make any comment on BHP's EIS. THe next step in the process is the release of a Supplementary EIS by BHP, expected later this year. The Government needs to make sure that in the interim, BHP puts some serious work into looking at alternative locations for the desalination plant.At this point in time, there is still every possibility that the Government could approve BHP's current plans at Point Lowly.

Ranger wrote:

I DO know that BHP are required by law to complete an environmental impact study prior to commencement of this project. "Independant authorities" are contracted to undertake this study I'm not overly concerned by this, especially given that there are another 12 proposed and sites available should a problem be identified or arise.

Yes, BHP are required to submit an EIS however the study is undertaken by BHP and assessed by the State Government. In this sense, the EIS itself is not independent. The State Government has the power to approve or reject the BHP application, to place conditions on any approval or to require alternative plans. Those of us concerned by the proposed desalination plant at Point Lowly are insisting that BHP be required to assess alternative more suitable locations. Assessing other locations all in the Upper Spencer Gulf is not good enough. Because of the gulf’s high salinity, low-flushing oceanographic conditions, the whole region is prima facie unsuitable for a desalination development. As I’m sure many of you know, the Upper Spencer Gulf provides important nursery habitat for many important commercial and recreational species. Larvae and juveniles tend to be much more sensitive to pollutants than mature animals.You might also assume that in Australia, we have one law for all. But this is not true when it comes to BHP. The Olympic Dam mine is regulated in SA under a set of outdated legal privileges in the Roxby Downs Indenture Ratification Act 1982 that take precedence over the Environment Protection Act 1993 and a range of other key public interest legislation on Aboriginal Heritage, Freedom of Information, Natural Resource Management and Water Resources issues. The SA government intend to bring a Bill to the SA Parliament in 2010 to amend the Roxby Indenture to extend these legal privileges to BHP’s proposed new open pit mine operation. My view is that BHP should be required to surrender their legal privileges under the Roxby Indenture Act and agree to be subject to the full set of laws and standards and due process in SA.Ranger wrote:

Important question: Has the EIS shown up any significant threat?

BHP admits that the desalination outfall will breach the EPA’s water quality policy. The ‘safe’ dilutions of return water required to protect 99% of species from experiencing inhibitory effects at 100m from the outfall pipe are in the vicinity of 1:45. BHP is proposing a target dilution level of 1:11, well above the safe level. The stands in contrast to the target dilution level for the Port Stanvac plant which is 1:50 (although it is debateable whether they will be able to achieve this). The zone of ecological effect at Point Lowly (i.e. the mixing zone between return water and brine discharge) is predicted to extend up to a 2.5km radius. The brine discharge is a toxic cocktail of hypersaline water and various chemicals, which because it is denser than seawater, tends to accumulate on the sea floor leading to depletion of dissolved oxygen, a threat to bottom dwelling animals such as prawns and cuttlefish. Carps wrote:

You can never trust the gov to make the right (moral) decision just look at the contradiction lets create marine parks to protect our fish stocks, then in the same breath lets build a desal plant to depleate the same fish stocks little bit of hypocracy at play there if ya ask me.

I actually think it’s a good thing that Point Lowly is located within the new Upper Spencer Gulf Marine Park. This means in assessing BHP’s proposal, the relevant Minister is required to take into account the objects of the Marine Parks Act, the main object of which is the protection of marine biodiversity and habitats. He must also refer the matter to the Environment Minister who can recommend that environmental conditions be imposed on any approval. What this means in essence is that development proposals located within, or likely to impact upon, a marine park will be subject to more stringent approval conditions than might otherwise be the case. It’s a subtle legislative change but an important one nonetheless.

The local community agrees, water and jobs are important, but not at the cost of irreperable environmental damage or damage to existing industries such as tourism and fisheries.See this website which details their concerns:http://www.savepointlowly.com.au/Committee/index.htmlPublic submissions on BHP's Environmental Impact Statement close this Friday 7 August. The Save Point Lowly coalition is asking people to join with them in raising concerns and has written a number of sample letters to get people started:http://www.savepointlowly.com.au/Committee/letterindex.html

You’re right - the experts do disagree, but let’s look at it objectively. On one side you have experts whose advice is funded by and written on behalf of BHP and on the other, truly independent advice from scientists with no pecuniary interest in the outcome. I know who I’d rather listen too. I understand why you might want cold hard proof before getting off that fence but science can never unequivocally prove ahead of time what the exact impacts of any particular development might be – models can give us some idea, but until the project is up and running, these things always have an element of the unknown.This is why we have the precautionary principle – now an accepted tenet of international environmental law, used by environmental managers in the field and by the courts in assessing whether or not developments should go ahead or what conditions should be imposed upon them. Precaution is a core principle of ecologically sustainable development (ESD). What does the precautionary principle say?Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.If BHP proposed desalination plant is approved, and I don’t think it should be in this location, then I hope their EIS modelling is right. But what if it’s not? What if all the environmental factors come together in such a way that toxic brine does reach the cuttlefish breeding grounds as predicted? Best available science tells us that even one such event could have catastrophic consequences for the cuttlefish population. See this article for more info: www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/04/30/2557262.htm The EIS process requires BHP to consider alternatives. BHP claims to have assessed 13 alternative locations for its desalination plant, but all of these are in the Upper Spencer Gulf, thereby treating the general public with what can only be called contempt. The experts want to see genuine alternatives considered, such that the outfall is discharged into deep waters with high-flushing characteristics which will quickly disperse the brine. Is that too much to ask? The only reason BHP doesn’t want to assess alternatives is the increased costs associated with longer pipelines. Not good enough in my opinion.

As part of its Olympic Dam expansion plans, BHP is planning to build a desalination plant at Point Lowly in the Upper Spencer Gulf. I know the prawn industry is very concerned about potential impacts from increased salinity, but I wonder how the recreational community feels?See this link to an online petition opposing the desal plant:https://secure.wilderness.org.au/cyberactivist/cyberactions/09_07_sa_marine-cyberaction.php?Maybe this is something fishers and conservationists can agree on for once?