SUBMISSION REGARDING PROPOSED

CHANNEL DEEPENING AT PORT PHILLIP HEADS

Above: Port Phillip Bay at sunset, watercolor by Mary Rimington.

I plead that the panel abandons the proposed works to deepen the shipping channel. I believe that the research provided so far has not shown conclusively that our Bay and it’s inhabitants and users (both human and non-human) will benefit such to outstrip the risks of the process. Until such good quality research has been done, please DELAY the process.

The following risks particularly alarm me:

Point One:

Deepening the channel allows more water into the bay, causing an estimated 0.8m increase in tidal variation. This could be disastrous for those who have bought homes or invested in property in low lying areas such as Safety Beach (one new development has flooded twice this year already, due to heavy rain and high tides), Carrum Downs and Aspendale Gardens. I believe the State Government has a duty of care to the thousands of residents who have an increased risk of catastrophic flooding of their homes. Public health could also suffer from the effects of flooding on water supplies and sewage disposal.

Many suburbs already have to import sand regularly to replace sand washed from their beaches by the natural process of removal and deposition. I believe this process is likely to be hastened by increased tidal flow - increasing the cost of maintaining our bay beaches, and protecting our waterfront property.

Point Two:

The dredging will have a severe impact on our marine life from two aspects – the physical dredging itself will kill or displace a large amount of marine life at the heads (fishing using explosives is banned in many countries due to damage to the environment). The sand plume and turbidity in the water will also have disastrous effects on the marine ecosystem. Sand in the water cuts down the amount of sunlight reaching the marine plants, which will decrease their growth or kill them, depending on the extent of silting. The plants provide the habitat and food for many fish, crabs, and other species, which would also decline. The fish and crabs are in turn eaten by larger fish and marine mammals such as dolphins and seals, so they also would be affected. Each creature can also have their hunting success decreased by the cloudiness of the water, and some will choke. The sediment from the spoil grounds will affect the whole coast from Mornington to the heads and probably outside the bay.

Point Three:

The safety of shipping will be decreased. At present there is a little bit of leeway when ships accidentally leave the shipping channel – most of them do not immediately run aground. The proposed larger ships will probably run aground the moment they leave the new channel. I am informed that there have been half a dozen incidents over the last 15 years where ships have unintentionally left the channel. Any one of these will have the potential to be our own ‘Exxon Valdez’. The larger ships will also have more trouble negotiating the channel, simply because they take up more room. In some tides and weather conditions, the ships are forced to travel at an angle across the channel to maintain course. In this situation, the ships take up a third or more of the width of the channel – not much room to spare, really.

The port of Melbourne is in a less than ideal situation naturally, being inside a treacherous entrance (the Heads) and several hours from the ocean. These concerns can never be addressed. Melbourne is not Australia’s best option as a port.

The dredging will also have an effect on the humans who use the bay – largely fishermen, boat users and scuba divers. The fishing will be greatly disturbed by the sand plume from the dredge and the spoil grounds both immediately, and in the longer term by the decrease in habitats. The diving will also suffer greatly. The wall across the heads is the best dive site in Australia – it has as much colour and diversity as the Great Barrier Reef and it would be a great shame to blast any of it. About two dozen spots along the wall have their own names as they are individual and special enough to return to. I understand you intend to remove Spectacular Reef (in the shipping channel) and you also intend to moor your barge on the Lonsdale side, ripping up some more of the wall to do this. Due to the sand plume, everyone could reasonably expect awful visibility of the water from Mornington south for the duration of the dredging and probably for months afterwards. This would affect hundreds of divers every month for 2 years or so.

Economically, I don’t believe we will benefit as much as promised. Given the cost increases of other major projects recently (Commonwealth Games, Spencer St Station, etc.) I believe the costs could reasonably double to 0.8 billion dollars, over the 30 years the project. The expected savings (to Big Business) of 1.5 billion are simply not worth the gamble with our Bay.

To conclude, I believe that this project should be delayed pending research or abandoned completely. It does not fulfill the targets of benefiting Victorians economically, socially or environmentally. It is too big a risk to take for a mere 30 years of extra port use.

Yours truly,

Name Withheld (Date: 11 August 2004)

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