The battle over Abbot Point

 by Alison Jones and Dr Brett Kettle

Abbot Point near Bowen in Queensland. Source: The Australian

“Save the reef” has become a popular catch-cry among many environment groups, with Greenpeace’s Great Barrier Reef website shared more than 125,000 times on social media to date. It and many similar campaigns have focused heavily on “massive dredging, dumping and shipping” for coal and gas ports, particularly the recent Abbot Point dredging decision.
There is no doubt that there are reasons to be gravely concerned about the Great Barrier Reef, with less coral in some parts of the 2300 km ecosystem than three decades ago (the finer points of the issue are detailed here, here, here and here).
Yet groups such such as Greenpeace, the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), WWF, as well as The Greens, some scientists and, increasingly, the media and community, are wrong to portray dredging and dredge spoil disposal as a major threat to the reef’s survival.
This deliberate misrepresentation of the facts is evidenced in a recent comment by Felicity Wishart from the AMCS that: “If we are scaremongering it’s because the evidence is clear that there are real concerns to be worried about.”
Rather than saving the reef from decline, “scaremongering” over the Abbot Point dredging plan and the subsequent diversion of management, research and conservation efforts, are now threatening to undermine efforts at tackling the more serious issues facing the reef.
We risk seeing hundreds of millions of dollars poured into studies, offsets, monitoring, campaigning, legal costs and holding costs unrelated to the major factors that really affect the reef – just at a time when every available dollar is needed to focus on measures aimed at improving the reef’s resilience.

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Wanted: reef science free from politics

Image sourced: Reef hysteria

According to the Australian Institute of Marine Science, nearly half of the reef’s decline to date (mostly in the southern part of the reef) can be attributed to impacts from cyclones, 42% to the crown-of-thorns starfish, and 10% to coral bleaching.
It is clear that the Abbot Point disposal site has no coral or seagrass and that risks from dredge spoil are low. Even ardent opponents of dredging have acknowledged that it is possible to manage port developments properly, pointing to the 1993 dredging at Townsville as an example.
Of the many dredging programs in Australia, there are few cases in which trigger levels have even been breached, and none where impacts have exceeded those that were predicted.
If coral really has declined by half since 1985, as reported by the Australian Institute of Marine Science study, Australia appears to have as little as a decade to identify solutions, and then another decade to trial, implement, and scale them up.
If that time frame is correct, then it is even more urgent that we avoid devaluing the role of science in helping us “manage, mitigate, adapt or even discover solutions”, as Australia’s Chief Scientist Ian Chubb recently wrote on The Conversation.

A more urgent set of priorities

Granted, scientists need to get better at predicting and measuring the low-level, long-term, far-field and cumulative effects of dredging.
However, most of the technical ambiguity around dredging impacts is about fine-tuning tactical operational issues of dredge operation, or the optimum location of material placement to achieve a balance of community priorities.
The more important science challenges for the future health of the Great Barrier Reef are aimed at sustaining its various uses. These include improving our knowledge of how the reef changes and adapts to disturbance, and learning how to manage the reef to minimise harm and to boost its ability to recover. These will involve refocussing a bewildering array of scientific resources into a unified strategy.
So what should we be putting more effort into if we’re to look after the health of the Great Barrier Reef in a future that includes accelerating change?
Significant funds that might otherwise go to research are currently spent on trying to remove Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, even though scientists acknowledge that “manual killing can only work on the scale of a few hundred square metres”. This is despite the fact that the causes of outbreaks are still inferred, rather than known with any confidence.
Nutrients in municipal sewage are discharged all year round, but the relative risk this poses to the reef compared to that in agricultural runoff and flood waters, is still unclear.
Maintenance dredging, which involves the removal of fine sediments from near the coast, has the potential to reduce catchment-generated fine sediments that impact coastal reefs. The extent of this possible benefit has not been studied.
The ultimate problem is that the body of science available is often incomplete and there is no overarching, risk-based synthesis.

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Intervention

If the Reef indeed faces accelerating change at a time when human uses also continue to accelerate, then it is inevitable that intervention programs for high value reefs – currently confined mainly to small-scale starfish control and coral reseeding – may become more urgent.
Mangroves, corals, seagrasses, fisheries and even the seabed itself are all capable of deliberate manipulation if it were deemed necessary to do so to protect, preserve or enhance a use or value of the reef. Options like building artificial coastal wetlands or even “barrier islands” to protect the coast might seem outlandish, but are technically feasible.
Yet little of the underlying science for this has been done, leaving a significant policy gap to guide potential future works. We should start studying these problems now.

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Barriers to decision-making

As scientists, we like to imagine that regulators devour our work and convert it into useful policy. The unfortunate reality is that our work is unintelligible to all but a handful of people, and in the real world, reef users struggle to adapt their everyday practices to such complex advice.
For instance, reef managers now insist that industries that use the reef should incorporate the concept of resilience into their impact assessments. But many are understandably frustrated at being asked to adopt something so poorly defined.
Scientists need to rise to the challenge of translating their work into practical guidelines that can be implemented today. In the words of another contributor to The Conversation, “scientists should be provoked into thinking about the way science advice is given and how they communicate".
This also means shying away from “scaremongering” that masks the real issues, creates widespread confusion and destroys the public’s confidence in their ability to rely on scientists. Its time for scientists to reject scaremongering or distortion of their results; to produce more cogent and practical guidance for policy makers; and to restore the faith of the community in science as a tool to help solve environmental problems. For the Great Barrier Reef, the clock is ticking.

Originally published as: The battle over Abbot Point risks losing the Great Barrier Reef war

Cross post under The Conversation republishing guidelines.

Corals – the Great Survivors

Photo sourced [here]

by Viv Forbes

For at least fifty years, agitated academics have been predicting the end of the Great Barrier Reef. Now international “experts” are also sprouting coral calamity. But despite the alarms, the reef is still there.

An early scare focussed on the Crown of Thorns Starfish which was going through one of its sporadic population booms. Such plagues come and go with the natural cycles of growth and decay. But the reef survived.



Then experts got scared in case someone drilled for oil on the Reef – so we had a Royal Commission and banned all that. However marine life seems to flourish around all artificial reefs such as jetties, shipwrecks and drilling platforms. Rigs have to be regularly cleaned of marine growth.

Natural hydrocarbons have been part of the wild environment for longer than corals, which may explain why corals are remarkably tolerant of hydrocarbons. Despite natural oil and gas seeps, man-made spills, and hundreds of offshore drilling rigs, corals still thrive.

After the worst oil spill ever during the First Gulf War there was no clean-up attempt apart from oil skimming because the 700 oil-well fires had priority. Fresh crude oil floats and is a danger to sea birds, but it soon reacts with air and salt water to become solid tar balls which sink to the sea floor. An inspection of the sea bed later to catalogue “the disaster” found teeming wildlife, with sea-grass, snails and fish thriving after the fertilising effect of the oxidising oil.

Corals are even thriving at the exact spot in the Montebello Islands where two atomic devices were tested by the British in 1952



Photo sourced from [here]

Another scare concerned coastal development and agricultural run-off. Again destruction of the Great Barrier Reef was forecast. Academics were summoned and a huge national park was established for their playground. Run-off still occurs, rivers still flood, but the reef is still there.

Lately global warming scares such as coral bleaching and ocean acidity have mesmerised the media. These are supposedly caused by wicked humans burning hydrocarbons and using energy by doing things. So we introduced a carbon tax, despite the fact that no unusual warming or acidity can be measured. And the reef is still there.

Now we are told that port dredging near Bowen is going to destroy the Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is 2,400 km long – stirring some mud at one small spot 40 km from the reef is unlikely to be noticed by the coral. Moreover, the stuff being dredged is comprised of natural material eroded from the land and put there over millennia by coastal rivers. Compared with the silt load discharged by rivers like the mighty Burdekin in a normal wet season, or stirred up by cyclonic surges, dredging is a non-event. The Reef has been coping with sediments like that for thousands of years





Photo sourced from [here]

All plants and animals need minerals for optimum health. Marine life gets its minerals from erosion of rocks on the land. Coastal rivers (and dredging of river silt) stir up the minerals which supply the off-shore environment. Like all nutrients, some is necessary, too much brings harm.

Corals are among the greatest survivors on Earth and have been here for about 500 million years. Many of the types of corals found on reefs today were present in similar forms on reefs 50 million years ago.

Since corals first appeared there have been five mass extinctions when over 50% of all life forms on land and in the seas died. These episodes usually included massive volcanic events that filled air and sea with debris, lava, heat and acid fumes. And still corals survived.

Then there were asteroid impacts that created huge craters that dwarf man’s puny ports. Debris, rock, mud and slush were flung in all directions – far more and further than man’s dredging will ever do. Corals even survived this.


Corals also survived several deadly ice ages when sea levels fell so low that many coral reefs left their skeletons stranded as limestone hills on dry land. But always some colonisers followed the retreating seas and survived.

Then came the hot climate eras when the great ice sheets melted and sea levels rose dramatically. Some coral reefs drowned, but others just built on top of the old drowned corals forming the beautiful coral atolls we see today. Corals flourish in gently rising seas such as we have today – it gives them room to refresh and grow vertically.

And if the water gets too warm, coral larvae just drift into cooler waters closer to the poles. The Great Barrier Reef would move slowly south.

Corals have outlasted the dinosaurs, the mammoths and the sabre-toothed tiger. Captain Cook’s ship was almost disembowelled by the sturdy corals of the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. If Cook came back today, he would be unable to detect any changes in the Reef.

We should of course minimise soil erosion, human pollution of offshore waters and direct damage or interference with the Reef. However, green extremists would like to sacrifice all of Queensland’s coastal industry on the coral altar - exploration, mining, farming, land development, tourism, forestry, fishing, and shipping. They need reminding it is only rich societies who can afford to care for their environment.

Photo sourced Drive Great Barrier Reef

No matter what the future holds, corals are more likely than humans to survive the next major extinction.

In the event of yet another Ice Age we must hope that reef alarmists have not denied us the things we will need to survive - food, energy, chemicals, shelter, concrete and steel generated by carbon fuels.



Viv Forbes, BScAppGeol, FAusIMM, FSIA
Rosewood    Qld   Australia
forbes@carbon-sense.com

Viv Forbes is has a degree in applied science, and has spent a lifetime working in, studying and writing about the geological history and primary industries of Queensland. He is a sheep breeder and a semi-retired coal industry manager. He is certain that the Great Barrier Reef will outlast him.
He is Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.




Fishers 'lucky to have survived toxic algae'

(Second in a series on evidence to a Senate select committee as published in the Queensland Telegraph

http://www.queenslandtelegraph.com/fishers-lucky-to-have-survived-toxic-algae/

http://www.queenslandtelegraph.com/bacterial-infection-linked-to-dredging/

Looking up Gladstone Harbour towards The Narrows with Curtis Island towards the top of picture.

By John Mikkelsen

EVIDENCE that two Gladstone fishers were lucky to have survived an encounter with toxic algae, was presented to a Senate committee hearing into a proposed new bill to halt development  in environmentally sensitive Reef waters. 

Serious  health concerns had coincided with the outbreak of disease in fish and other marine life claimed to be associated with the massive dredging project in Gladstone Harbour, the committee heard.

The Telegraph last week reported the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee had been told of a ‘cluster’ of  rare bacterial infections, by environmental medicine specialist Dr Andrew Jeremijenko.

Evidence was given later of other fishermen who were hospitalized, “two by ambulance,on morphine drips, who were lucky to have survived”.

Replying to a question from committee chair, Sen Doug Cameron, aquatic disease vetinarian Dr Matt Landos, said he was aware of the shewanella bacteria referred to previously by Dr Jeremijenko. He said there were two human health concerns that had arisen from the harbour development process.

“ Around 50 people became ill in a very short time which coincided with all the animals in the harbour becoming ill and dying.

“There were two things that happened. They started dredging without any

sediment control before re-suspension. It is possible, when you dredge, to minimise how far all of that sediment that you stir up goes. It is like putting a blender into the bottom, and you can either put a net around your blender and hold all the suspended sediment in, or you can just let it run with the tide.

“In Gladstone, they just let it run with the tide. Unfortunately, the tides are four metres and they run at four or five knots. So the satellite images show we have a 34 kilometre dredge plume of uncontrolled, re-suspended, toxic sediment going throughout the harbour. 

“Harbour sediments contain nutrient, so what we have done is fertilise the harbour.” This generated more bacteria and toxic algal blooms. The toxic algal bloom appeared to have been the reason why the harbour was shut to all fishing at that time.

“Several of the fishermen were hospitalised and, as a result of the advice I gave them, through to their GP, they identified that algal toxins were being inhaled off their nets.

“Two of those people had to be immediately taken to hospital by ambulance on morphine drips and are lucky to have survived.

“The reason the algal bloom happened was not natural. It was driven by the increased flux of nutrient from uncontrolled re-suspension. It was not just chance that it happened when it did.

“It also drove these infections with Shewanella that Andrew Jeremijenko spoke about.

“Some of those people are still sick and have lost the use of limbs as a result of these

infections,” Dr Landos said.

Sen Cameron:  “Are you aware of any action by the Queensland health authorities on this?

Dr Landos:  “No, their action has been largely to suggest that there is no problem with eating the fish, there is  no problem with eating the crabs and the water is fine. They have supported, with Gladstone Ports Corporation, sponsoring a $1.2 million media program locally to say, 'The water's fine, go out and use the harbour; everything's

great.'

He said the idea that all the problems were caused by a flood was “somewhat fanciful”.

The problem with approval of projects like Gladstone’s and  other ports projects now in the pipeline, was that there were ‘multiple beneficiaries’ including government.

“With the government then managing the project, we have an issue with the independence of management; and, with the proponent running the science program, we have an issue with the management of the science,” Dr Landos said.

A four metre tiger shark washed up on Tannum Beach, January 2011. Dredging started in September- October 2010.

Bacterial infection ‘linked to dredging’

by John Mikkelsen

First published at the  

 

 EVIDENCE of a likely link between serious bacterial infections and contaminated dredge spoil in Gladstone Harbour has been presented to a Senate select committee by an environmental medicine specialist previously employed by a major resource company.

Dr Andrew Jeremijenko told the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee last week he knew of three cases of the rare shewenella bacteria infecting Gladstone fishermen. He said this was normally associated with heavy metals and it was “extremely rare” to find a cluster of three cases.

A patient of his had been on the verge of having a leg amputated  when the infection was finally diagnosed after 12 months. Before that, doctors had been unable to find the cause or effective treatment.

Gladstone patient left leg & foot


“This person was written off as an undiagnosed case—just a swollen leg. It took a year to find out what he had. A friend of his also had shewenella, so we have had a number of cases,” Dr Jeremijenko said.

He said he knew of another case in Gladstone he was not involved with, where the patient did lose a leg. “In that case it was a vibrio infection."

"The study by the (State) government is a fairly superficial one. In my view it did not follow up these patients for long enough,” Dr Jeremijenko said.

His Gladstone patient was a shark fisherman. “He chops off shark fins for a living, then he pushes the body of the shark away and wraps up the fins and sends them to Asia.
“The shark has had all that disease on it. The juice was falling on to his left leg, which is the leg that got infected….

The other case was a fisherman who got it from washing his boat out. He had to go down into the water to adjust the pump and got the infection there.”

Dr Jerimijenko said the bacteria was more often seen in ‘boat people’ refugees, where there were dead fish and ‘hot water’ at the bottom of the boats.

He told the committee the bacteria was also found in “a lot of the sick fish in Gladstone Harbour”.
“Shewenella is very interesting because it is associated with heavy metals.

In fact, if you have a site contaminated with heavy metals, an anaerobic environment, it can chew up the metal and clean up the site.

“I think that what has happened in this case is that the dredging has pulled up all these bacteria along with the metals that we see in the dredge spoil. It has made the shewenella bio-available and that has caused the infection in these people…. It is extremely rare to have a cluster of three cases…. you would need more cases than that to call it statistically significant—but it is certainly an aberration that needs to be investigated,” Dr Jeremijenko said.

The Senate committee has been gathering evidence from a number of scientists and other interested groups to report on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Great Barrier Reef) Bill 2013.

Dr Jeremijenko said he was previously employed as Chief Medical Officer for Woodside, a major resource company, and had worked closely with them for years on improving health in the Pilbara. The company he now runs, TeleDoctor, has for three years supported QGC and Origin Energy (which are involved in the multi-billion dollar coal seam gas and LNG industries in Central Queensland).

“We have done dredging in Woodside for many years to open that harbour, but we have not seen infections like this (at Gladstone).
“There are ways to do dredging safely. You can use things like silt curtains. You can use closed containment systems. You can now suck out the spoil from underneath the top area and that can protect you from having all the tides washing up the turbidity… but they cost more money.”

With Abbot Point (near Bowen), they said that they looked at onshore disposal, which is the preferred method for acid sulphate soils, and they found that it was too expensive; it was economically prohibitive,” Dr Jeremijkenko said.

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French focus on threats to Great Barrier Reef

The following is a media release just received from Australian environmental group Save the Reef. Recently some of us were told this was a local issue of no interest to the general community on "that" site. But it is still very much in the international focus. See the Planet Hope video at
 http://www.france24.com/en/20130101-planet-hope-australia-coal-great-barrier-reef-coral-environment-energy-gladstone-port-exports

Save the Reef media release.

9 January 2013

International embarrasment  - Great Barrier Reef Dumpsite

French television internationally embarrassed Australia by airing news about the Great Barrier Reef "dump site".   In a 10 minute program the French interviewed Gladstone fishermen with their sick fish and ruined livelihood and discussed the Abbot Point expansion.   France had no problems discussing how Australia is risking their World Heritage Status with plans to expand Abbot Point and dump dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.  (This plan was mostly ignored by Australian TV when released)    The decision makers in France would most likely have seen this news program and it will not aid Australia's case which will be presented on 1st February 2012 to UNESCO (who have threatened to put the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area on the "In-Danger" list). 

Save the Reef has condemned the Abbot Point expansion.  A report by the Department of State Development, Infrastructure and Planning found Abbott Point was under utilized and its use has been declining over the past three years, operating at just 27% capacity last year.  There is no need to expand Abbott Point and use the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park as a dump site for 3 million cubic metres of dredge spoil right now when UNESCO is about to make a decision to put the Great Barrier Reef on the In Danger list"  stated Dr Andrew Jeremijenko.  "Dumping in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a new low for Australia. Lower then the current Gladstone Ports dump site in the World Heritage Area.  The claims that dumping in the marine park 8km from Holbourne Island National park in the Whitsundays will not cause harm are unbelievable."   
The Government continues to ignore the UNESCO recommendation and released its 10 year Port Strategy with its plans to expand ports like Abbot Point throughout the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. They intend to continue to use the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area as a dredge spoil dumping zone despite 91% of people opposing it and plan to start charging to dump spoil in the marine park despite UNESCO's recommendation to improve water quality.  The government have relaxed the water quality limits and allowed dredging over the limits.  They fined the dredgers a paltry $6600 for dumping tonnes of their spoils illegally in the World Heritage Area and passed new legislation so that mines can dump their waste water (the equivalent of half of Sydney Harbour) which will flow into the Great Barrier Reef.  

 “The government is defying UNESCO.  It not only recommended expansion of ports that don’t need to be expanded, it also relaxed the coastal development laws, despite UNESCO expressing extreme concern about  “the unprecedented scale of coastal development.” said Dr Andrew Jeremijenko. 

The state has announced its 3 month inquiry into the Health Payroll,  but has failed to announce the UNESCO recommended inquiry into Gladstone Harbour and Curtis Island including its expansion into the pristine Keppel Bay.   The local council, the state member and the Federal member, all oppose the expansion of Gladstone ports into the Fitzroy  Delta and Keppel Bay, home to the rare Snubfin dolphin.     

Jeff Seeney called UNESCO a "bunch of international beurocrats" and Campbell Newmans response to the UNESCO recommendations was “...We are in the coal business…"    While the world is watching us and making a decision about our ability to protect the World Heritage Area, these comments can only be described as "grossly incompetent".  

Dr Andrew Jeremijenko, spokesperson for Save the Reef, said   “The Queensland Government is not only risking the World Heritage Listing by defying UNESCO recommendations unnecessarily, it is risking our reputation as custodians of the Great Barrier Reef, a world wonder, a tourism icon and our national treasure.   The World Heritage “In Danger” listing would make us polluters of the reef, instead of protectors of the reef.  It would be a worldwide embarrassment.  It is no wonder the French journalists filmed a story when they saw it for themselves."

There is no need to ignore UNESCO.  There is no need to expand the ports.  Coal can use existing ports.   Our Reef has lost over 50% of its coral and the “In Danger” list is likely.   If we won’t protect the Great Barrier Reef, we won’t protect anything.