Benefits of dredging impossible to ignore
THE article in last Saturday’s The Weekend Post “Call to get big ships into port” demands a response.
The article states “Treasurer and acting State Development Minister Curtis Pitt has instructed Ports North to focus on ways to increase the size of ships entering the city’s port” as well as “The Government has granted the authority an 18-month extension to an environmental-impact statement.”
Mr Pitt’s directions to Ports North do not differ significantly from the Co-ordinator General’s final September 2012 Terms of Reference for the proposed Cairns Shipping Development Project.
Ports North announced consultants ARUP had been commissioned to complete the EIS in April 2013, Ports North later said changed conditions required further work and had delayed the report.
The Terms of Reference had not changed. The “changed conditions”, with the Government ruling against dumping dredge spoil at sea, involved less work rather than more as the TOR already required assessment of options to place dredged spoil on land.
The draft EIS was released in April this year. Rather than waiting for public submissions and a final EIS (key requirements of the CoG’s assessment process), Mr Pitt announced “on the basis of the draft EIS, the Government had decided against the proposed Trinity Inlet dredging”. He explained the $365 million cost for land-based spoil placement was unacceptably high.
A submission to the CoG demonstrated the draft EIS grossly exaggerated the costs for spoil placement on land by at least $100 million, and failed to complete two critical TOR requirements: “Sufficient baseline economic data to underpin a comprehensive assessment of the direct, indirect, cumulative, costs and impacts of the project” and “The indirect impacts likely to flow to other industries and economies from developing the project, and the implications of the project for future development”.
The article continued: “The scope of the project includes capital dredging of the swing basins and Trinity Inlet and deepening of the approach channel to the port”, Mr Pitt said.
Mr Pitt said previously that the Reef 2050 report, on which the agreement signed by Federal Minister Greg Hunt with UNESCO is based, precluded “capital dredging” in Cairns Port.
The Reef 2050 report states: “Dredging can either be capital dredging, for new channels and berths, or maintenance dredging, necessary to maintain existing and approved dredging areas.”
The Cairns Shipping Development project requires only maintenance dredging, defined as “to maintain the safe and effective ongoing operation of a port facility”.
The 18-month extension is unnecessary. Competent specialists could complete the additional requirements, including a benefit-cost assessment, in a few months if they were directed to do so.
The Cairns Post editorial on September 3 noted: “The decision by State Development Minister Anthony Lynham to consign Cairns’ port to second-tier status should cause outrage throughout the Far North.”
Outrage indeed. Apart from a minuscule, but influential minority comprising some Labor and green supporters. Also a few Cairns business leaders apparently consider cruise ships unwanted competition, ignoring the benefits port deepening would enable including port operational efficiencies and reclaimed land.