By Briar Sinclair
DREDGING could be carried out with minimal disruption to users of Port Phillip Bay and bayside residents, according to the findings of an independent audit into a trial bay dredge.
David Telford from professional services company GHD carried out the Environmental Protection Authority’s environmental audit.
GHD has prepared reports for the Port of Melbourne Corporation (PoMC) on aspects of channel deepening including channel and dredged material ground stability and a risk assessment report.
It also formed a proposal for the PoMC to lower a main sewer under the Yarra River by 7.5 metres as part of the channel deepening project.
The company proposed using an advanced tunnel-boring machine to excavate a new passage to drain sewage from Melbourne’s central business district to the Western Treatment Plant in Werribee.
Mr Telford’s audit report found the trial dredge, which took place in August and September, generally complied with the environmental management plan imposed on the exercise. The noise did not exceed the threshold during the dredge and lighting from the dredge ship Queen of the Netherlands did not exceed the threshold, either.
Key exceptions on the overall compliance included a rock fall into an area known as the Canyon at the Heads and dredging was conducted outside the approved area between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff.
PoMC chief executive officer Stephen Bradford said improvements will be made where they can be.
“We want the project to proceed but we must first ensure all environmental conditions are satisfied,” he said.
“The port is doing all it can to ensure the necessary environmental safeguards are in place for what is the most closely monitored project of its kind ever seen in Australia.”
But the Blue Wedges coalition has alleged the trial caused extensive environmental damage and questioned the independency of the audit.
“Why was the EPA’s independent audit undertaken by GHD, a firm which was also a PoMC consultant for the channel deepening environmental effects statement?” spokesman John Willis asked.
“The EPA lost credibility in August this year when it was found that a PoMC owned site on the lower Maribyrnong River is leaching huge amounts of toxins and heavy metals into our rivers and bay.
“These reports found that arsenic, copper, zinc, lead and ammonia were constantly leaching into the river in volumes up to 154,000 times the safe environmental limit and yet the EPA have done nothing.
“What is worse, the EPA did not inform the general public about the health risk in an area where up to 200 people a week fish on a recreational basis and the majority of those consume their catch.”
The environmental audit report is available on the EPA’s website at www.epa.vic.gov.au.
