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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-05-27 Daily Xml
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Motions

St Kilda Mangroves

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. T.A. Franks:

That this council—

1. Condemns the inaction of the Minister for Environment and Water and the Minister for Energy and Mining in dealing with Buckland Dry Creek Ltd, resulting in the mass die-off of mangroves in St Kilda;

2. Calls on the government to act to ensure that the hypersaline brine filling the ponds near the south of St Kilda Road is drained out as a matter of urgency;

3. Calls on the ministers to commit to closing and repairing the ponds as directed in the Crown land lease conditions; and

4. Calls on the ministers, and their departments, to work with the public to create an action plan for the closure of the ponds and restoration of the surrounding tidal wetlands.

(Continued from 3 February 2021.)

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (17:01): I hate to break the somewhat congenial atmosphere we have had today, but I am going to. I rise to indicate that Labor will be supporting the motion in the name of the Hon. Tammy Franks. The death of nearly 25 acres of mangroves and 86 acres of saltmarsh is nothing short of one of the biggest ecological disasters in Australia's modern history. The fact that this government either did not realise that this was happening or, worse, did not care, is a scandal. Just as concerning is that almost 300 days later we are no closer to actually understanding how this disaster occurred or what is being done to fix it.

In the middle of last year, visitors and locals to St Kilda, including my seven-year-old boy, started noticing that mangroves along the boardwalk tourist attraction were going yellow and appeared to be dying. Further investigation by Peri Coleman, a St Kilda local and environmental consultant, uncovered the mess that we now have before us.

In the absence of any investigational outcomes from government agencies, Ms Coleman and other respected experts conducted their own investigations. They concluded that the destruction is likely the result of renewed pumping of hypersaline water into nearby salt ponds which has caused the leaking of acidic material into the surrounding environment. Further evidence of this disaster is apparent in St Kilda itself, with hardy gum trees and other terrestrial trees around the area, which have stood for decades, now having to be removed by locals at their own expense.

There has been virtual radio silence from both the Minister for Energy and Mining—whose agency is responsible for the licensing arrangements under which the company in control of the salt pans operates—and from the Minister for Environment and Water, who appears to fancy himself as the quasi tourism minister, by the way, and is more concerned about paving the way for development in national parks.

Adelaide's mangrove forests are an integral part of the ecology and economy of our region. They are the nursery upon which many species of the Barker Inlet and St Vincent Gulf rely to breed as a food source. Among those species are Adelaide's resident dolphin population, one of the only populations of marine mammals living within the boundaries of a large city anywhere in the world. In fact, one of the most concerning parts of this, frankly, debacle is that it has been allowed to occur within close proximity of the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, the St Kilda-Chapman Creek Aquatic Reserve and the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary National Park.

These important areas of wilderness protection should have had the highest level of caution applied to any vicinity anywhere near their borders, and yet here we are with a seemingly uninterested state government which has allowed them all to be put at risk through a lack of governance and a complete lack of oversight. The economic output of this area is also enormous, not only through the thousands of visitors to the area looking for an ecotourism adventure, like my young boy, within 20 minutes of the CBD, but also to the fisheries of Gulf St Vincent and beyond.

It is not too often we actually see environmentalists and commercial fishers come together and agree on any particular issue, but this government has managed at least that very small achievement, with Neil McDonald, the executive officer of the Gulf St Vincent Prawn Boat Owners Association, joining along with the Conservation Council and other non-government organisations in calling for action from the government to fix their mess. RecFish SA has also joined the Save St Kilda Mangroves Alliance, which is an acknowledgement of the importance of this natural fish nursery.

South Australians still do not have the answers they deserve from this government: basically, who knew what and who knew it when? When were the ministers alerted to this growing disaster? Was it back in the middle of 2020 when their agencies first became involved? If so, why did they not speak publicly? More importantly, why didn't they act? What is the outcome of their investigations into the causes? What action are they taking to ensure this never happens again?

I suspect some of these answers will probably come through freedom of information requests that are eventually finalised by the ministers and their agencies, but the unfortunate situation we face right now is that there are no guarantees about further die-offs. The Minister for Environment and Water himself said as much earlier this year.

The same scientists and experts who blew the whistle on this issue hold grave concerns that further damage will occur. Just last month we heard from Save St Kilda Mangroves Alliance spokesman and Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins that:

Nine months after reports emerged of mangrove deaths at St Kilda, the hypersaline brine that caused the damage still has not been completely removed, and damage is still occurring.

The local ecologist I mentioned earlier, Peri Coleman, is also quoted as saying:

Potentially 19,000 tonnes of new salt may be entering the Dry Creek salt fields every week with no effective strategy for managing its impact.

No effective strategy. She continued:

Already the system is not coping, with alarming yo-yo swings in salinity levels that may have killed populations of invertebrates such as snails, small crustaceans, marine worms, brine fly larvae and brine shrimp.

This is nothing short of an ecological disaster. This chamber should condemn the lack of action from these ministers, and demand immediate and urgent action to ensure future disasters are avoided. For those reasons, Labor supports this motion.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (17:07): I rise to speak briefly in support of this motion, but particularly in condemnation of the way the two ministers, the Minister for Energy and Mining and the Minister for Environment and Water, have handled this matter. I say 'handled the matter', but really they have bungled the matter. It is utterly reprehensible that it took so long for them to act, and the lack of transparency from both departments has been simply appalling.

It has now been a year since there were first signs that something was very wrong down at the mangroves, but it has been even longer since the ponds started to be filled by Buckland Dry Creek. I remind all members here that Buckland Dry Creek were not allowed to move water or brine where these ponds are under the holding pattern that has been in place. This was the care and maintenance plan put in place after the ponds were initially closed back in 2013 and drained, against advice, in 2014—although I note as well that there are separate issues with the holding pattern and whether or not that was even working.

Despite this, despite the holding pattern, there was early evidence of the ponds being filled on 6 December 2019. What follows is a damning time line in terms of the government's management of this issue. The first two ponds south of St Kilda, PA5 and PA7, had shallow brine right across them by 21 December 2019. The brine in those first two ponds continued to deepen until 15 January 2020. The gate to PA8 was opened and brine started to fill that pond, reducing the levels in PA6 and PA7, notably.

By 27 January 2019, which was the next available date for the satellite imagery, the gate to PA9 had been opened and that pond had started to fill, reducing the brine levels in the first three ponds. On 6 May 2020, the satellite imagery shows considerably deeper brine right across the ponds—a clear ramping up of the pumping, which must have occurred in the few days before. By 15 July 2020, the orange patter visible in the false colour in the normalised vegetation index was apparent, signifying a loss of chlorophyll, which is a hallmark of the areas where mangroves and samphires had begun to die. By 30 July 2020, the mangrove dieback area was quite clear on the satellite imagery.

Yet, despite this, despite this evidence very early on in the piece, the government did not get involved until September. In fact, it was not until late September that DEM, DEW, the EPA, the Coast Protection Board and Buckland Dry Creek visited the mangroves and noted that they were sick. At that point as well you could see and hear the brine trickling out of the banks, and you could even see where the acidified brine had reached the surface. This is a damning time line, so it is mind-boggling really to hear from both departments that they were not aware of this issue until September. What is going on here?

It is frankly bizarre that it took until earlier this year—and we do not know the exact date—for a formal investigation committee to be established to look into the impacts of the leaking brine. Worse still, we are told that we might not even have a report until next year. Talk about being asleep at the wheel! None of this has come out of nowhere. We have had clear and consistent warnings as far back as 2012 that this could happen, some of those from the government and the government's commissioned reports.

When the salt fields were first set to be closed, a report prepared for the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges NRM Board outlined the risks of the pond closure, including the discharge of hypersaline brine and its impact on the environment. We have then actually seen a formal complaint—not just one complaint but several complaints—lodged under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act in 2015, once again raising concerns around the risk of acid sulphates and brine leaking into the mangroves.

These complaints also related to concerns that while there was a holding pattern in place, it was not a long-term solution and was originally intended to end in 2014. By then the owners of the site—Ridley, at that time—were supposed to have a closure plan in place. Instead, since then we have seen the holding pattern extending until 2018, and then again until SA Water ran out of water intended for dilution of the brine sometime in 2019.

Then, as if that was not enough, once again a study commissioned by the department in 2019 noted a major issue that hypersaline and sulphide-rich sediments had built up over large areas of the ponds and the salt field, posing a potential environmental hazard and a barrier to the remediation of the site. All of these warnings, all of these concerns, have been ignored.

When we have seen action, the action taken has been inadequate. It has been done in half measures. We have been told that the departments and the EPA have pumped 50 million litres out of the leaking ponds, but what has actually happened is that water has been removed but salt remains. The brine was pumped from one side of the leaking ponds to the other, to a side that is slightly higher up, and that pumping was just to increase the evaporation of these ponds. So of course all the salt has been left behind, so when it rains all of that salt is just going to be washed back into the system.

What is more concerning is that apparently the DEM staff have admitted that they have no data yet to predict the impact of the rain. Instead, they just hope that, based on the annual moisture deficit, there will not be a significant mobilisation of the redissolved salt. This is terrible. What I think the department are hoping for is some sort of miracle, because while the year has been dry so far, the area where the salt fields are actually experiencing negative evaporation—otherwise known as significant rainfall—has been left lacking. So to pin your hopes on a year-long average, rather than on the real-time weather conditions, is simply ridiculous.

Beyond that, I am informed that the Department for Energy and Mining has fully acknowledged to the community that, despite the department's hopes of a second wave of the groundwater, this may move towards the marsh in winter. Let's be clear: they are once again fully cognisant of the possibilities of the risks, but they do not seem to be doing anything at all. This is certainly excessive risk-taking behaviour on behalf of the government. We are seeing far too little action, too little too late, from the state government, and we are seeing one department passing the buck to another, on to the EPA or the federal department, but no-one is prepared to step up and take responsibility, to hold the minister to account, and fix this problem.

When this motion was first introduced, my colleague Tammy Franks raised the fact that the trees in local backyards were suddenly dying and that we were seeing an explosion in mosquito populations, but since then we have seen a devastating impact. This disaster is having a terrible effect on migratory birds. I would commend the work of the St Kilda Mangroves Alliance in raising this issue, and I understand they have now lodged a complaint with the federal environment minister under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. There is a litany of failures here. It is very clear that the government needs to step up and take some action. More needs to be done sooner rather than later. It has already been too long. I commend the motion.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (17:16): On behalf of the government I rise to make some remarks in response to this motion, which the government opposes. The motion does not accurately reflect the effectiveness of the swift, science-led regulatory response, which has avoided further damage to the mangroves at St Kilda. The motion does not appreciate that regulatory directions have been made to ensure that Buckland Dry Creek operates in line with its approved plans, and the motion fundamentally misunderstands the rights conferred to the owner of the site by the previous government when they set in place the holding pattern to manage this sensitive coastal ecosystem.

The Dry Creek salt field ceased producing salt in 2014, following the closure of Penrice's Osborne soda ash production plant. The coastal location, and over 70 years of salt production at the site, presents a complex environmental liability. Following a series of environmental investigations, selected ponds across the salt field were allowed to dry. The remaining ponds were authorised by the former Labor government to operate in a holding pattern to prevent impact on the surrounding environment while longer term solutions were investigated. The holding pattern includes the discharge of saline brine into the SA Water-operated Bolivar discharge channel to allow for dilution of the salts prior to discharge into the gulf.

The salt fields were sold to Buckland Dry Creek Pty Ltd (otherwise known as BDC) in 2014, when the former Labor government was in office. Under new ownership, land reclamation accelerated at the southern end of the salt fields, and trials to dry off some ponds occurred to reduce the size of the fields. In early 2020, some previously dried ponds were reflooded. On 17 September 2020, the government became aware of reported dieback of the mangroves adjacent to the St Kilda boardwalk. The impacts to vegetation observed at St Kilda are unacceptable.

A prompt regulatory response has occurred, which to date has successfully avoided any significant increase in the area of impact. This is contrary to the claims of some groups that have implied a significantly larger area of impact, which is contrary to the science. Unfortunately, there has been some misinformation, which is not in line with the scientific data being collected on site that supports the efficacy of the regulatory response.

Whilst continuing to monitor the situation, we are now working on restoration and rehabilitation of the site. A coordinated cross-agency response has been deployed to control any further impacts to vegetation, to re-establish environmental stability, to reinstate the environmental conditions necessary for recovery of the impacted areas, and to plan for sustainable future management arrangements.

This is a complex site—and the government is committed to understanding the scientific ecological processes—which is part of a much larger joined-up network of mangroves. Any action to halt further damage to the existing site must be very carefully planned to not damage other parts of the sensitive tidal network. A proportionate regulatory response to this event to ensure this does not occur again must also be based on the collection of robust scientific evidence.

In addition, investigations are underway, which limit what the government can say about the regulatory actions to date so as not to prejudice the investigation. Work is continuing to stop further impact, promote conditions recovery and establish long-term environmental stability for the mangrove and wider ecosystem. The significant movement of water and reduced water movement to the most affected mangroves and saltmarsh areas has allowed state government pumping activity at the St Kilda salt field to cease.

We are also working within the parameters established by the previous Labor government and the holding pattern and mining leases within it. We are intent on delivering the greatest benefit to the community and the environment for this part of our precious coastline.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (17:20): Thank you to all those who have made a contribution today. I think, like many South Australians, many people in this chamber will have fond memories of visiting the St Kilda mangroves and share the heartbreak that I am certain is felt at the moment with the destruction of this unique environment. Certainly, we have all agreed on that part of the facts.

When I first moved this motion, I did not want to think that we would still be here some months later with no answers, no transparency and no accountability, but here we are. When I first moved this motion, it looked like the departments and the EPA were starting to ramp up the action and were starting to try to remove the brine and stop more environmental impacts, but the results since then have actually been questionable.

I know I covered a few of the impacts during my initial speech, but there has been additional information that I want to be really clear about right now for the council to understand the sheer scale of mismanagement that we have seen here. We were told, for one, that serious pumping would take place to remove the brine from the ponds and away from the mangroves, but this was not quite true. When you hear that, you think that the brine is being completely removed and either transported away or is being transferred to an impermeable or further inland pond, but this has not been the case. No; instead, they pumped into the eastern side of the same pond, not to remove brine or decrease the salinity but rather to simply increase evaporation.

Further, despite the order to remove water from the ponds that was made on that 24 December date, no attempt to pump was even made until the second week of January 2021. Even that attempt was not able to remove enough brine from the four ponds to even wet the next two ponds. The department has recently stated that 50 million litres of brine has been removed, but is that entirely accurate when much of that was from the ongoing leaking of these ponds and from evaporation?

The salt is still there, so no salt has actually been removed from the system. This means all of that salt is just going to get washed back into the system, down to the adjacent seawall when it rains. In what universe is this an appropriate solution? As my colleague the Hon. Rob Simms pointed out in his speech, the department does not even have the data or information on what might happen the next time it rains and all this salt is dissolved once more.

We were told that departments are working with the community, but at best we can say—and this is being quite generous—that they have met with the community perhaps a handful of times. What the department calls a meeting is not necessarily actually a meeting. For example, in the Budget and Finance Committee this week, we were told that the Minister for Energy and Mining had recently met with the St Kilda Mangroves Alliance on site. I have been reliably informed that this is actually not the case. Rather, he met four members of the alliance in passing for a couple of minutes. This so-called meeting took place only a week ago and the minister is yet to set a proper date to meet with the alliance on site.

I remind the council again that the department has known about this issue since September last year and the community has known about it for much longer. In fact, the Department for Energy and Mining has handled this matter so poorly and so many community complaints have been made regarding how the department has treated community members—and indeed the department is now turning on community members—that yet another department, the Department for Innovation and Skills, has had to be brought in to help facilitate a community meeting, and that took place earlier this week.

Despite the far-reaching impacts of this disaster, no community forum has been held with the residents of St Kilda. This is beyond ridiculous. This kind of disaster is actually not unprecedented. It happened in the 1930s, during which time the same ponds leaked like a sieve. As my colleague pointed out, and as I pointed out in my original speech, we have had multiple warnings over multiple years that this could happen if we did not manage these ponds properly. We have now seen almost a decade of missed opportunities and mismanagement.

It is not good enough to blame the previous government for this. Our Marshall government has utterly failed to prevent an entirely preventable environmental disaster here and now. The mismanagement of these ponds goes back further than this most recent disaster, and the local environment there and the ponds have been stuck in this holding pattern. I note it is a holding pattern that was never intended to be permanent. In fact, it was supposed to end in 2014 with the implementation of a proper closure plan.

As was noted by the Hon. Rob Simms, the holding pattern continued to get pushed back, and to this day we have never seen any form of closure or other long-term management plan for these ponds. The mismanagement has led to the salinity levels that yo-yo back and forth, and about 2½ years ago all control over salinity appears to have been lost, which of course is likely disastrous for wildlife supported by these ponds.

Historic data indicates that the ponds were held within very narrow salinity ranges, and more recent data reveals conditions in the ponds are extremely variable, so it is likely that the stable populations of invertebrates that were present in each pond have already been killed. Yet somehow we hear from DEM that they are considering a 'temporary return' to the harmful holding pattern. Despite all the evidence, despite having years and years to figure out a long-term solution for these ponds, despite even having a fresh chance now so that something good might come from the death of these mangroves, they have once again ignored what should be a wake-up call, and they are now looking to something that never worked in the first place.

They are not even indicating what the time line might be for this temporary reinstatement of the holding pattern. I reiterate that the criteria for that original holding pattern had never been maintained for longer than a season, and hypersaline pond ecology needs at least seven years to be able to establish properly. The original holding pattern was supposed to end in 2014. They have now had more than seven years to come up with a long-term solution.

I know that there are people out there in the community with solutions and suggestions ready to go, backed up by science, backed up by data, and if the departments and organisations in charge cannot come up with something on their own after all this time they could at least consider working with the community that so desperately wants to help them fix this. As I say, there has been scant respect for that expertise in the community.

We now look to this chamber to pass this motion to demand action and to condemn the Marshall government's past inaction, because I have no confidence that this government will take this disaster seriously without more pressure now. I have no confidence because we see comments made about the future of the mangroves completely unsubstantiated by fact and action, comments such as those from the acting director of mining regulation on ABC radio that 'government departments are on top of the issues that are currently faced with the salt fields at Dry Creek' and that the department is confident that the situation is not going to get worse.

When I asked the department about these comments and what scientific evidence they are based on, the department did not have an answer. In terms of the department's confidence, I think Peri Coleman said it best:

While DEM may be 'confident' that further damage to the mangroves may not occur, let’s consider their track record, mmm?

They were 'confident' the miner could be allowed to flood a further three dams after killing the first lot of mangroves and saltmarshes. Cost? Another 3 or 4 km of damaged coastal wetlands.

They were 'confident' the miner’s mackled together pipe arrangement across the Little Para would be safe. Cost? The brining of the estuary of the Little Para.

They were 'confident' that issuing a 'stop pumping' order would stop the leakage. The cost? Many months of continued leaking until the leaking dams essentially drained out.

They were 'confident' the miner’s pumps could handle the by-then crystallising brine to remove it, when they finally issued a 'remove brine' order in summer. Cost? Well that didn’t work at all, rumour has the miner’s pumps stopping after 15 minutes...so the EPA has been out on site moving the crystallising brine to the uphill side of the dams with little pumps where it has salted out, and will await some decent winter rains to dissolve back up and mobilise again.

They were 'confident' the problems were confined to the pond/dam system south of St Kilda. Cost? Trees in the gardens at St Kilda have died as the crystallising brine in the northern ponds has impacted the perched freshwater lens under the town. And the invertebrates in the dams, that the migratory shorebirds feed on, have all been pickled by the changed salinity.

So, HOW confident are DEM?

How confident can this council be that the department and the ministers are handling this issue? We know that the ministers have been very slow and very lackadaisical in handling this disaster.

I am not confident at all in these ministers, so I want to be clear: it is not good enough to blame the previous government. It is not good enough to have been so slow to act. The community is watching. This parliament is acting. We will not stand for further destruction and ineffective action. I commend the motion.

Motion carried.

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