Original story by Graham Lloyd, The Australian
THE heads of Australia’s main environment groups who claim to represent 1.48 million members have signed a joint letter urging the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to reject a plan to dump dredge spoils from expansion of the Abbott Point Coal terminal within the marine park.
Environment groups said a decision to approve dumping would be “a fundamental breach of the duties and office” of reef authority chairman Russell Reichelt.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has approved the capital dredging program but a decision on whether or not to approve the dumping in Great Barrier Reef waters was deferred by the reef authority until next week.
Conservation groups claim the final site for dumping has not been agreed to and that no decision should be made until the outcome of an independent inquiry into the Gladstone Harbour dredging and port expansion is known.
Mr Hunt said he would announce the terms of reference for an independent commission of inquiry into Gladstone next week.
That probe will not investigate the Abbott Point expansion, which is more than 600km north.
The inquiry into the management, regulation and implementation of the Gladstone expansion as part of the $35 billion Curtis Island LNG export project has been taken up by a broader environmental campaign to restrict industrial development and shipping near the Great Barrier Reef.
Yesterday’s joint letter was signed by the heads of WWF-Australia, the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Get UP! and Humane Society International-Australia. It called on the reef authority to refuse a dredge dumping permit for North Queensland Bulk Port Corp’s Abbot Point dredging program.
“The overall health of the Great Barrier Reef, particularly in the southern two-thirds of the region, has declined significantly,” the letter says. “Key habitats such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows are in serious decline and populations of threatened species, like turtles and dugongs, are continuing to dwindle.
“A primary driver in this decline has been poor water quality and we are extremely concerned that further pressure through dredging and dumping in the reef’s waters will only exacerbate the situation.”
A spokeswoman for the reef authority said the January 31 deadline still stood. She said the authority had no comment on the letter.
The environment groups say they do not believe strict conditions placed on the dredging project by Mr Hunt will be sufficient.
“We reject the proposition that action to reduce sediment by 150 per cent can or will be undertaken in the anything like the same timeframe as the proposed dredging and dumping,” they said.
The state’s peak resources sector body, the Queensland Resources Council, has said it was confident the reef would make its decision “based on facts and science, rather than ‘slacktivist’ campaigns using social media”.
The council chief executive Michael Roche said he was confident “the science that shows more than 30 years of port development has not been harmful to the Great Barrier Reef will prevail”.
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