Australia OKs Dumping Dredge Waste In Barrier Reef

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has approved the dumping of 3 million cubic meters of dredge waste in park waters. The decision has been blasted by environmentalists. 'This is a sad day for the reef and anyone who cares about its future,' said WWF Great Barrier Reef campaigner Richard Leck. 'The World Heritage Committee will take a dim view of this decision, which is in direct contravention of one of its recommendations.'"

Comments

Sign the petition

[Anonymous Coward]

This might help:

https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/coal-seam-gas/unesco-great-barrier-reef

It's absolutely disgraceful that politicians can be so short sighted as to allow this to happen. It makes my blood boil.

Re:Sign the petition

[ShanghaiBill]

If the shit was not "Waste" before it was scooped up and moved to another spot, then it's still not "Waste".

"Dredge waste" is more commonly called "sand". It is not exactly toxic industrial sludge that they are dumping.

Re:Sign the petition

[deek]

The conditions require that sediment entering the marine park be reduced by 150 percent over the long term -- a "net benefit" to water quality -- and that $81 million be contributed to reef conservation programs and specific measures observed to protect marine flora and fauna.

It's important to note the sea floor of the approved disposal area consists of sand, silt and clay and does not contain coral reefs or seagrass beds.

  Hmmm, this decision could actually be a benefit to the reef, not a detraction. I'd hope so, considering the park authority approved it. These are people who love the reef, are tasked with the job of protecting the reef, and are presumably experts in marine ecology and environment. They approved it. I'd say it's a very good chance that they made a good decision.

Re:Sign the petition

[zaphod777]

While this is a complex issue, coral health really depends on water clarity and lack of nutrients in the water column. I am mostly worried if this will make the water so murky or even bury the coral. This may be far enough away that it won't make a difference but it needs to be taken into account.

Re: Sign the petition

[weilawei]

There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.

Re:Sign the petition

[weilawei]

That's known as an appeal to authority. We hear them a lot on /., usually in reference to some policy made "for the children" or "to protect us". Save it for someone who cares. Citations or GTFO and don't make uselessly speculative comments. For example, you could cite WHICH experts approved it, since that would allow us to more easily judge if there's a financial motive or other outstanding bias which should not have factored into their decision, above and beyond their expert status.

Re:Sign the petition

[TapeCutter]

In this specific case it's actually sand mixed with fine silt, it's clean but silt is a problem for coral, it needs clear water or it will die from insufficient sunlight. Having said that there is no coral at the dumping site, but there's plenty nearby and oceans have currents and storms that will move it around. It would have been much simpler to sail the barges a bit further out to open water off the continental shelf and dump it in the open ocean, but that would have cost a few more dollars so instead they lobby the feds to gain permission to vandalise the reef.

This new government has a vindictive ideological grudge against environmental issues, they are also planning to open up 70-something thousand hectares of world heritage forest in Tasmania to logging. Despite the fact that after decades of wrangling, loggers and environment groups agreed on a peace deal last year that included a ban on logging in that forest. Forestry is a major part of Tasmania's economy, nobody on either side of that long and arduous fight wants to reignite the divisive issue except the new federal government.

Re:Sign the petition

[weilawei]

This is what I get for not running the numbers myself: It's actually 15.5ish miles, but my point stands the same, even more so, if anything.

Re:Sign the petition

[quenda]

Even so, can't they just drive a bit further out to sea before pressing the "dump" button?

No, because there is this big reef in the way, that forms a rather great barrier.

Re:Sign the petition

[godel_56]

If the shit was not "Waste" before it was scooped up and moved to another spot, then it's still not "Waste".

"Dredge waste" is more commonly called "sand". It is not exactly toxic industrial sludge that they are dumping.

Sometimes dredge waste is called "silt" or even "mud".

Oh well, the Great Barrier reef will be dead in a few decades anyway from rising sea temperatures, some no real harm done.

/bitter_cynicism

Re:Sign the petition

[thegarbz]

You mean the park authority headed up by these guys?

Colour me sceptical that this is such a great benefit to the reef.

Re:Sign the petition

[aurizon]

A lot depends on the amount of 'fines', very fine particles or clays that float in the water column and can drift for miles. These fines can coat the coral animal (which is busy filtering particles from the water column and eating the organic ones,) If the floating feed changes from 50% organic to 2% organic, the animals internal systems might become fatigued from dumping waste and not getting enough energy to fuel this waste separation - the animal starves.

They might have to place water curtains to constrain the fines, which can only be done in low current areas, or add some flocculating agent to speed-settle the fines.
The good thing is the Aussies claim they will make sure there are no wide ranging fines to foul corals - will they be right? What will happen with a cyclonic storm? Cyclonic storm happen a few times in the year and they fill the water column with waste fines - which the coral deal with - perhaps because storm fines also have organic content. Perhaps the way to assist the coral animal is to add a little extra fine food to 'pay' for the extra work the coral animal has to perform in processing useless fines.?

By reef...

[LordLucless]

And by "reef", they mean a patch of silt 25km away from the actual reef.

Re:By reef...

[mjwx]

And by "reef", they mean a patch of silt 25km away from the actual reef.

You do know that 25 KM is not a long distance, it's only 17 miles if you're not competent with metric measurements.

25 KM will easily be covered by currents.

The federal Australian government is also attempting to have the old growth forests in Tasmania de-listed as a world heritage area so they can log there.

Re:By reef...

[mjwx]

25 KM will easily be covered by currents.

Implying that the current flows from the dump site towards the reef?

Implying that things in the water will only go one way?

Along with currents you also have sea life and humans that will also move detritus quite easily.

You might not be familiar with water, but things dumped in the water (especially particulate matter like silt) rarely stays where you dump it.

Re:By reef...

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

And by "reef", they mean a patch of silt 25km away from the actual reef.

And Deepwater Horizon was 77km (48 miles) from shore. This just in: ocean currents move stuff around.

Re:By reef...

[Luckyo]

I'm getting the feeling that it is you who are unfamiliar with water. Whatever it takes, it dilutes to minuscule particles very quickly. Only solid stuff that does not degrade in salt water quickly such as certain types of plastic gets noticeable, and that just gets stuffed inside one of the ocean's great gyros which are trashed with plastic anyway.

Otherwise you're going to have to conduct a costly chemical analysis looking for particles to notice it. As an example, a motherload of all dumps was taken in the Baltic after WW2, we're talking chemical weapons, biological weapons, explosives, chemical waste on massive scale. The basin has minimal flow into the ocean. Tdoay it's still clean enough that people can swim in it, it's full of fish that is safe to eat (as much as overfishing allows) and so on.

And here you're whining about an area size of a Germany in the middle of the biggest ocean on the planet and about other people not having a clue about water? Really?

Re:By reef...

[viperidaenz]

Could that be why they are dumping at a site where silt normally settles?

Re:By reef...

[Anonymous Coward]

Deepwater Horizon involved oil which floats, not heavy dredging spoil which by definition does not. Sure, currents move sediment on the ocean floor around, but not much. And bear in mind that the GBR region already has any number of major rivers flowing into it which dump millions of tons of sediment into the area every year; sediment which, moreover, is full of agricultural chemicals and fertilizer. When you see a picture of the GBR it's inevitably of high grade coral surrounded by brilliant aquatic fauna. What you don't see is that 99.99% of the region is not reef, it's just normal continental shelf, an area the size of Germany (as someone else said). The occasional dredging operation or ship hitting the bottom in the GBR region are near irrelevant. They are just high profile trivialities for environmentalists to grasp and use to excite the general public. The real threats to the GBR are global warming and farm runoff.

Re:By reef...

[alvinrod]

According to the government's own environmental impact report there isn't any anticipated impact. From the report:

Impact of dredging at the new berth will be very limited as the volume to be dredged is very small, and the duration of work (two weeks) is minimal. Studies at the proposed offshore disposal site also reveal that past disposal has had no discernible long term effects. No significant level of contaminants has been found in the dredging areas, from coal or other material spillage, and dredge spoil is therefore considered suitable for unconfined ocean disposal. Coastal processes do not contribute to silting of the berths or the approach channel.

It sounds like this isn't the first time they've dumped there and that those prior events have not had any noticeable negative effects and that they've tested what's going to be dumped there to ensure that there aren't any contaminants. It's starting to appear as though this is just a lot of environmentalists throwing a fit for no good reason.

Re:By reef...

[Dutchmaan]

"After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."
Next time: "After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."
Next time: "After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."
Next time: "After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."
Next time: "After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."
Next time: "After all, what's just "a little bit more" gonna do..."

Re:By reef...

[Harlequin80]

Why is this modded insightful?

It is being sucked up out of the shipping channel and harbour (ie off the ocean floor) and then being transport basically no distance and put back down in the main area silt builds up. Also current flows are AWAY from the reef.

This will have orders of magnitude less impact than the floods we have do.

Re:By reef...

[ChunderDownunder]

Or, you know, Americans could just adapt when they come to visit.

Lots of scary things in Australia - the metric system, driving on the left, dunnies that flush the opposite direction, 240V AC, summer in February etc.

Re:By reef...

[TapeCutter]

Clear water is essential since coral needs sunlight to survive. You won't get a tropical reef without mangroves, mangroves hold the silt in place at the river mouth and keep the reef water clear. They are so effective as a filter for fine particulate matter that they clean the filthy outflow from the Ganges and provide the crystal clear waters where some spectacular reefs can be found. These people are building the largest coal port in the world, it's a $30 billion project. This site was chosen because it was cheap and convenient, I don't think a few extra bucks to dump it in deep water off the continental shelf is too much to ask given the perceived risk to the tourist and fishing industries that rely on a healthy reef.

The silt found in the dumping area is not "already in the water", it's on the sea bed. It's only a problem to coral if someone stirs it up to the point it starts blocking sunlight.

Re:By reef...

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

As for Tasmania, almost 50% of the entire state is currently world heritage listed.

Are you sure about that? Closer to 20% it would seem.

I don't think de-listing a fraction of a percent of that ....

A fraction of a percent? They're de-listing ~74000 hectares of 1.4 million. Thats closer to 20%.

...is going to cause much damage.

You can't even get basic facts right & you expect people to believe your assessment of what will cause much damage? Even by slashdot standards, you're a fuckwit.

Re:By reef...

[Pav]

I've just been speaking to a friend of mine who studied marine biology at James Cook University (a world leader in this kind of thing) and is a bit of a fish nerd. There's a reason the reef only starts 30km offshore. Coral is evolved for low nutrient low sediment conditions. Milky water cuts the light, and extra nutrients encourage filimentous algae which basically take over and shade the coral. Even the seagrass beds are very fragile especially at the moment after the natural disasters (floods, cyclones etc...) we've been having lately - the Southern Dugong is almost extinct. This stuff is widely known and care is taken even down to the building site level etc... to control sediment runoff. Apparently at the micro scale we need to worry about this, but at the macro scale it's no worries mate.

Re:By reef...

[TapeCutter]

The reason they don't dump tonnes of rubble in residential zones is because the land is more valuable as real estate than a dumping ground, and millions of tonnes of rubble takes up a whole lotta space.

Sound logic, I'm an Aussie taxpayer and I think a marine park is more valuable as a breeding ground for fish than a private dumping ground for Senator Clive Palmer's unwanted land fill.

Re:By reef...

[Pav]

This paper is probably also relevant. It's about crabs from the commercial fishery near Gladstone developing holes in their shells. The conclusion was dredging was exposing anerobic sediments to oxygen releasing copper, arsenic and a bunch of other metals and compounds which had a detrimental effect on sea life.

Take Out the Trash Day

[Anonymous Coward]

And like most other pronouncements made by a government authority which are expected to attract negative publicity, this decision was made and released on a Friday afternoon.

Had it been something for which the government authority wanted maximum publicity, they would have made the announcement at the start of the week. (Sunday. Monday.)

I hate it when government departments work the news cycle ... it feels dirty.

Clive Palmer

[TapeCutter]

The balance of power in the senate is unclear after the recent election, but "billionaire miner" and newly minted federal Senator, Clive Palmer has collected a few oddball independent senators under his "PUP" party banner. Their oddball nature is what makes the balance uncertain, also AFAIK there is nothing in writing, it's been all press talks where Palmer did most of the talking. However, what is clear is that if the oddballs remain loyal to Palmer, then Palmer holds all the cards. In essence he will have the "umpire" vote whenever the major parties disagree.

Now here's the unsurprising news about the money trail - The project we are discussing is a joint venture between "mining magnates" Gina Reinhart, and you guessed it, Senator Clive Palmer.

I'm sure they can find somewhere suitable.

Yes, and that place is the open ocean beyond the reef or as clean landfill, but "doing the right thing" would mean Clive and Gina (world's richest woman) would have to spend the money they thought they could save by socialising the risks involved.

At the end of the day it's really quite simple, parks are not created for use as cheap landfill sites for the mining industry, why such an application would even be considered is beyond me. Worse still if the government were to reverse the decision, they will probably be sued for the extra costs and several million mugs like me will end up paying their costs anyway.