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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-09 Daily Xml
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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (16:39): I move:

That the 64th report of the committee, entitled 'Final Report on Desalination (Port Bonython)', be noted.

This is the second report on desalination by this committee in recent times. An interim report was tabled on 16 December 2008, and it related to the proposed Adelaide desalination plant at Port Stanvac. I will not repeat the relevant statistics that relate to the two reports.

This report was tabled out of session on 5 August 2009 in order to meet the environmental impact statement consultation deadline set for the proposed BHP Billiton plant at Port Bonython. The 19 recommendations in the report relate to environmental marine impacts, reflecting the inquiry's terms of reference. None of the submissions received or any of the witnesses who appeared were totally opposed to desalination per se, but they were concerned with the issue of adequate dispersal conditions, particularly in Spencer Gulf, and many suggested alternative siting outside of gulf waters. Saline dispersion modelling from oceanographers at both SARDI and Flinders University challenged the veracity of the BHP modelling.

The committee agrees that the key issue for Spencer Gulf focuses on the adequacy of brine dispersion and the accuracy of the modelling undertaken to ascertain dispersion profiles, particularly during the occurrence of dodge tides. The site selected for the desalination plant is in Upper Spencer Gulf within a region believed to experience slow turnover and which is also recognised throughout the world as the site of the only known mass aggregation of spawning Giant Australian Cuttlefish, the eggs of which would be impacted by increased salinity.

The committee believes that further investigation is required into alternative sitings of the desalination plants and that this process requires a regional engagement strategy with an emphasis on local, regional, company and governmental collaboration.

The release of the environmental impact statement by BHP Billiton addressed a number of design questions raised during the inquiry. The only strategy to prevent entrainment of larvae, eggs and plankton is the use of a low speed intake. Backwash sludge will be dewatered and disposed of on land, and modelling has been used to design a diffuser system to ensure that dispersion of brine occurs efficiently. Salinity toxicological studies were undertaken on a sample of cuttlefish eggs sourced from the site and on a small number of other local species, including Western King Prawns, a species also known to use this area as a breeding ground.

The committee believes that desalination can be a beneficial technology if established and used in a sustainable and environmentally aware away. Due to the paucity of information, the committee has concerns regarding the dispersive behaviour of the brine stream during the twice monthly event of dodge tides and recommends stringent monitoring take place during these periods to obtain actual live data to validate the modelling that has been used as the basis for the current plant design.

The original proposal discussed the option of storing return water on land during these periods of low dispersion, but no mention of this occurs in the current EIS. The committee suggests that consideration be given to suspending processing during periods of dodge tides or at other times when water or weather conditions may give rise to increased risk to the marine environment. The committee is also of the opinion that all monitoring regimes should be designed to include provision for measuring cumulative impacts, as the Spencer Gulf is already considerably impacted by industrial, stormwater and wastewater discharges.

Given the likely increase in interest in desalination plants, the committee also believes that reforms are needed to environmental legislation and policies to ensure that proponents have clear direction as to appropriate locations and operations of future desalination plants in South Australia, and that a framework should be established with explicit site selection criteria that includes the assessment of environmental, economic and social factors. I commend this report to the council.

The Hon. M. PARNELL (16:45): As a member of the Environment, Resources and Development Committee, I support the motion that this latest report be noted. The ERD Committee looked at desalination in two parts. First, we looked at the Port Stanvac desalination plant and we produced an interim report before the EIS period closed on that plant, and we have now produced this second report, again in time for the closing period of the EIS for the BHP Billiton Olympic Dam mine expansion. I want to speak primarily about one recommendation in the committee's report, and that is recommendation No. 1. The recommendation reads:

The committee recommends that the government require BHP Billiton to conduct further investigations into alternative sites for a desalination plant because of the high potential risk to the marine environment at Point Lowly. The government should establish a framework for explicit site selection criteria, including an assessment of environmental, economic and social factors.

That recommendation is, I believe, the most important recommendation that we have made, and we have not made that recommendation lightly. It is based on the evidence that was presented to the select committee by a range of eminent scientists from Adelaide University, Flinders University and, indeed, the government's own scientists from the South Australian Research and Development Institute, and in a moment I will go to some of the comments they made.

In our recommendation we urge the government to establish a framework for explicit site selection criteria. I draw the council's attention to the site selection criteria that BHP Billiton used in determining that Point Lowly was the best spot for a desalination plant. The EIS, in their main report, volume 1, page 78, identify three things that the company took into account in determining the location.

First: 'proximity to Olympic Dam with clean, deep'—that is, greater than 20 metres deep—'and fast flowing water (i.e., water of high plant intake quality and a high-energy environment in which to dilute and disperse return water safely)', and then they refer to the fact that they have an animation that you can download from their website. So, that is the first criterion: proximity to Olympic Dam; in other words, the closest location that they could find that had water that was suitable for their needs.

The second criterion is: 'accessibility and constructability of the water pipeline': again, a practical consideration, primarily emphasising cost. The third criterion is: 'availability of land and established utilities, such as power, roads and telecommunications infrastructure': again, a criterion that is aimed at the cheapest and easiest option for a desalination plant.

In that list of three things that I have just referred to, not one of them refers to minimising the impact on the marine environment: that was not a consideration. In fact, to emphasise this point, the EIS, under the heading 'Reasons for rejecting other options', sets out a range of reasons why they did not look seriously elsewhere and, again, all of those reasons are based on economics and cost.

At the end of the day, they chose the Point Lowly site because they believed they could manage the environmental impacts and it was the most cost effective of the options they investigated. They say in their EIS that they looked at other locations. They say they looked at Point Lowly, Port Augusta, Whyalla, south of Whyalla, south of Port Pirie; in other words, all locations in Upper Spencer Gulf, and they say they looked at Ceduna as well, but there is no detailed analysis of why other locations, in particular high energy West Coast locations, were not given serious consideration.

BHP has made a not unpredictable call, based on the cheapest option for them. That is why I think the ERD Committee's inquiry is most important: because we have gone beyond just looking at the economics and we have looked at the environment. The species that has had the most attention paid to it, largely because it is a very attractive and beautiful species, is the giant Australian cuttlefish. When we look at the government's own response to the BHP Billiton EIS, we find that a number of agencies express concern about the potential impact on the giant cuttlefish of brine discharge from a location at Point Lowly.

It was my great pleasure, only a month or so ago, to put a wetsuit on and have a look for myself at these giant cuttlefish. Even though it was quite late in the season there were still many cuttlefish that were within easy viewing reach. You do not even have to be able to swim: you can stand in waist-deep water, put your face mask on and you will see the cuttlefish there. The important thing about them, of course, is that they are a fairly fragile species in that they live for only one or two years. That means that, if we get something wrong in relation to the desalination plant, if the modelling turns out to be incorrect and if a dangerous slug of salt water finds its way into the cuttlefish breeding aggregation, there is the potential for catastrophic damage; in other words, a species could be wiped out with one incident.

That is not the case with other marine species. For example, snapper, can live for 20 or more years and, if something goes wrong once, there are probably plenty more to replace them but, when a species lives for only one or two years, something going wrong once can be catastrophic.

Evidence that was particularly impressive for the committee came from the government's own scientists, particularly the evidence and the statement provided by Associate Professor John Middleton, who is the oceanography program leader at the South Australian Research and Development Institute of Aquatic Sciences. Associate Professor Middleton is probably this state's foremost expert on these issues.

In relation to the predictions of what might happen to the waste stream from the desalination plant, he told the committee, 'The modelling is of a very good technical standard, but the amount of data used to validate the brine concentrations and ocean currents is inadequate,' and he recommended a range of measures to provide the modelling with more substance.

He went on to say that the data used to validate the hydrodynamic modelling of brine plume dispersal are inadequate. The ocean current data used in the EIS consists of only 30 to 60 days of current meter data, which was collected in different years, and 12 hours or so of a boat-mounted current profiler.

It is quite remarkable that here we have the biggest project ever planned in the history of our state, in which they are proposing to locate an important part of that project in one of the most sensitive marine environments in the state, yet they think they can get away with such inadequate science and inadequate modelling data.

In fact, it gets worse the more you delve into this issue. For example, whilst it arrived after the ERD Committee had finished its deliberations, the whole of government response to the BHP Billiton EIS makes very similar observations about the inadequacy of the data used to validate the BHP claimed models, and it is not just in relation to computer models predicting where water will go.

In relation to basic biological information about what is present in the marine environment, one of the things the EPA said was that it considered that using intertidal data from 1981 was not sufficient in characterising the habitats currently present. In other words, BHP has tried to get away with using information that is some 28 years old and think that that is good enough to tell us the current state of the current marine environment, particularly in relation to the intertidal area. As to the hydrodynamic brine plume modelling, even Primary Industries has this to say:

The EIS does not demonstrate that BHP Billiton has rigorously validated the model predictions and has modelled the full range of extreme events that may occur. In particular there has been too little data collected to confirm or otherwise the predictive skill of the model. This is a critical issue, as the cuttlefish are an annual spawning species, and the population at Whyalla has been shown to be genetically distinct from other areas of Spencer Gulf.

I will not read through the hundreds of comments made by different government agencies, but many of them are very similar. The EPA also makes this observation:

The EIS should have measured data on the extreme dodge tides that occur in late May and November. This would better inform the high risk period and extent for the plume.

Putting all these things together—inadequate data and the existence of these dodge tides—should lead to an outcome whereby the precautionary principle kicks in and BHP Billiton, if it is allowed to build its desalination plant in a location such as this, should be forced to close it down during those high risk periods.

The committee heard evidence from other oceanographers who said that, with a combination of temperature and certain wind events, upwelling could occur. Even though computer models may not predict slugs of hypersaline water travelling up into cuttlefish habitat, it can and has happened in other marine environments; therefore, you would expect BHP Billiton to have in place measures such as shutdown arrangements so that, in periods of high risk, that risk is reduced.

However, no such plans are in the EIS. BHP Billiton has no intention of closing down its desalination plant during periods of dodge tides, and it is reluctant to do the live monitoring that a number of scientists have recommended—again, largely because it is an expensive exercise. That is why the ERD Committee's term of reference No. 1 is so important, and I think it has been vindicated by the government's response to the BHP Billiton EIS.

I want to make one further reference to Associate Professor John Middleton's report because it arrived at the ERD Committee after we had reported on the Port Stanvac desalination plant—yet his submission covered both the Port Stanvac and the Point Lowly plant—so his recommendation was not included in our first report. Had we had his report earlier, we would have no doubt made reference to his statements in relation to the SA Water Adelaide desalination plant. In relation to the SA Water Adelaide desalination plant he states:

The regional modelling of ocean currents and brine concentrations near the proposed outfall site is of an inadequate standard. The amount of data used to validate the model is not adequate.

He goes on to say about modelling:

...the regional mid-field modelling of brine concentrations and ocean currents is generally not of an adequate standard, including questionable assumptions made for the specification of currents and sea level along the 'open boundaries' (edges) of the adopted model domain. It is unclear how the adopted assumptions will allow for the proper representation of wind-forced or density driven currents in the model.

I think any committee of parliament, when faced with evidence from the government's own scientists that the information relied on is inadequate, would need to pay careful attention to that.

Professor Middleton's concerns in relation to Point Lowly are in many ways similar to his concerns about the Adelaide desalination plant; in fact, in many ways his words are stronger in criticising the approach taken by SA Water for the Adelaide desalinisation plant. I commend the report to the council, and I would urge members of the government to pay very careful attention to the recommendations we have made as they deliberate over the next stages of the BHP Billiton EIS process.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins.

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