Dredging is vital to keep Ports operational.

Originally posted by North Queensland Bulk Ports 20th Jan 2014 Here

Ports have been operating in Australia for over 200 years and dredging has been a vital part of ensuring safe and efficient ports.

Dredging involves removing sediment from the seafloor for a variety of purposes, whether to deepen or maintain existing berth pockets and passageways or to create additional berths in harbours. 

NQBP is port authority for three ports operating within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area which have been subject to strict environmental controls for many decades.

Throughout the past year there has been a concerted campaign of misinformation about dredging operations proposed at the Port of Abbot Point.  The misinformation generally claims that dredging will result in damage to the Great Barrier Reef.

NQBP has an impeccable track record with regards to dredging activities.  In accordance with Commonwealth and State legislative requirements, all NQBP dredging projects undergo rigorous environmental assessment of potential impacts.

While the science is extensive and detailed – the facts are simple:

• All coral reefs are protected from dredging;
• No toxic material is disposed at sea;
• Suitable relocation sites are selected carefully under strict regulation;
• All environmental sensitive areas are protected; and
• Australia needs ports and ports require dredging.

Since 2002, NQBP has successfully undertaken 22 dredging campaigns and we have employed world class environmental management and monitoring programs for each campaign.  These serve as a far better guide to what can be expected than the deliberately misleading and wildly inaccurate claims.

 

For more information about dredging, the Queensland Ports Association has released two fact sheets: 

Why Qld Ports need to Dredge
Options to manage Dredged Material

Ports are vital to our economy

A question often asked.  How many people outside the ports and shipping industry actually give any thought as to how their food, clothes, fuel and other items find their way across the world to appear on the shop shelves or at a petrol station??

Without safe access to ports and harbours, ships cannot deliver their goods.  Also, the same goes for goods being shipped from our country, as in agriculture products, seafood, live cattle and so on.

Without dredging - ports cannot operate.  If the Green organizations get their way and stop all dredging and dumping within the Great Barrier Reef Marine park waters. What will become of all our ports along the east coast of Queensland?? It is FACT, they have to dredge from time to time.  For maintenance, expansion and so on.

The Green organizations have really backed themselves into a corner by wanting to halt all DREDGING and DUMPING. Before they were just saying they wanted dumping stopped.  Now, everywhere that they are posting , whether it is on social media or via television networks and newspaper articles, they are saying DREDGING and DUMPING to be halted.  

They need to realize that this simply cannot happen.  Ports need to dredge. What do they suggest the ports do if they cannot dredge??  They have no answers ofcourse, because , we all know that originally it was all about the coal industry and they are hell bent on stopping coal exports at all costs. They clearly just don't get what they are proposing.  By stopping coal exports they will stop all exports and imports into and out of Queensland. 

It is time that the Green groups and their followers take off the blinders and instead of trying to kill the coal industry put their money to good use (instead of ridiculous court proceedings) and help the Great Barrier Reef with donations to fund more research!!

The reef is worth saving. Funding to scientists should be for finding out how to stop the Crown of Thorns Starfish outbreak.  How to manage ports and dredging so that the Qld economy can keep ticking over.  It is time for the anti coal green scientists to step up to the plate and put up their hands to do more research on the effects of dredging.  Instead of trying to stop it and kill our economy which in the long run will not help the reef.  Our strong economy is where money will come for the funding of appropriate research.

hes  to  ports  at  defined  

A new organization has just started called Reef CSI.  Run by Scientists who care about the Reef and who will not be guided my misinformation or hysteria.

Reef CSI – People saving the Great Barrier Reef.

Outraged by what you’re hearing about the Great Barrier Reef?
Confused by the mixed messages?
Want to help save the Reef?
ReefCSI is an independent not-for-profit with only one agenda – finding and doing what’s right for the Great Barrier Reef. This means we tackle the hard but important questions. It also means we’re willing to step on toes… of industry, regulators, conservationists, researchers, governments and the media – anyone who is off-base over what is needed to put the Reef in its best position for coping with human impacts.

Reef CSI Facebook Page

Reef CSI Website

The battle over Abbot Point risks losing the Great Barrier Reef war

By Alison Jones

“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.

Wanted: reef science free from politics

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.

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.

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.
 

This article was co-authored by Dr Brett Kettle, a marine scientist with 30 years of experience consulting to industry, government and the community. Among other projects, he managed the 1993 dredging at the Port of Townsville, which research scientists have recommended as “a model for all large development projects”. He also led the team of scientists that developed light-based thresholds for managing seagrasses during dredging.






* This article was co-authored by Dr Brett Kettle, a marine scientist and the managing director of Babel-sbf, a consulting company that works regularly for state and federal government agencies including the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, as well as consulting to industry in Australia and overseas, including for ports and shipping, resources, incident response and reef remediation. He is regularly called as an expert witness in court cases. He managed the 1993 dredging at the Port of Townsville. He also led the team of scientists that developed light-based thresholds for managing seagrasses during dredging, and recently performed the largest reef remediation undertaken on the GBR. * Alison Jones does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.



This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Holding Big Green Accountable

Electrify Africa initiatives should finally trump environmentalist opposition to big power plants.

Poor countries should hold the big green groups and their directors liable for deaths and ravage that they cause!!

By Paul Driessen - - Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Few Americans can imagine life without reliable, affordable electricity – for lights, refrigerators, air conditioning, computers, and countless other technologies that enhance and safeguard our lives.

But in Africa, India and other regions some 2.5 billion people still lack electricity or must rely on little solar panels on their huts, a wind turbine in their village or unreliable power grids. They must be content with a cell phone, light bulb and tiny refrigerator.

These energy-deprived people do not merely suffer abject poverty. They must burn wood and dung for heating and cooking, which results in debilitating lung diseases that kill a million people every year.

They lack refrigeration, safe water and decent hospitals, resulting in virulent intestinal diseases that send almost two million people a year to their graves – mostly women and children.

The energy deprivation is due in large part to unrelenting eco-activist campaigns against coal-fired power plants, natural gas-fueled turbines, and nuclear and hydroelectric facilities. Even President Obama told Africans in 2009 that they should leapfrog the “dirtier phase” of economic development, ignore fossil fuels, and instead use their “bountiful wind and solar power, geothermal energy and biofuels.”

Citing climate change, his administration even joined Big Green environmental groups in refusing to support loans for critically needed coal and natural gas-fired generating plants in Ghana and South
Africa.

It’s thus a momentous development that the House of Representativeshas passed an “Electrify Africa” bill, the Senate will soon vote on its companion “Energize Africa” measure, and the White House is sponsoring a “Power Africa” initiative. All three will spur fossil fuel, power plant and electrical grid development, improving access to energy, jobs, higher living standards, better health and longer lives.

The measures speak of a “broad” power mix, including renewable energy, but say little or nothing about oil, gas or coal. However, Africa has abundant supplies of these fossil fuels and cannot afford to ignore them. A huge power plant in Ghana takes advantage of otherwise unneeded natural gas, while South Africa’s enormous Medupi plant burns coal, using technologies that remove up to 90% of key air pollutants.

Environmentalist pressure groups will nevertheless probably oppose any “Energize Africa” policy recommendations or project proposals that involve fossil fuels or promote any large-scale power generation, instead of reliance on what they and the United Nations like to call “sustainable energy.”

Sierra Club, Greenpeace and UN activists would never agree to less than 1% of the electricity that average Americans use. For them to advocate such miserly levels for Third World families – instead of the “high energy” levels they need and deserve – is hypocritical, callouseco-imperialism.

India’s Intelligence Bureau recently called Greenpeace “a threat to national economic security,” noting that it has been “spawning” and funding internal campaigns that have delayed or blocked electricity projects and other infrastructure programs needed to lift people out of poverty and disease. The Bureau says anti-development NGOs are costing India’s economy 2-3% in lost GDP every year.

The Indian government has now banned direct foreign funding of local campaign groups by Greenpeace, WWF International and other foreign NGOs. That’s an important step.

Big Green campaigners constantly demand “environmental justice” for poor families. They insist that for-profit corporations be socially responsible, honest, transparent, and liable for damages the NGOs
allege companies have inflicted, by supposedly altering Earth’s climate and weather, for example.

However, they bristle when anyone says the same standards should apply to them, as nonprofit corporations that wield enormous power and influence. They oppose Golden Rice, for example, consigning millions of children to malnutrition, blindness and death. 

They incessantly battle pesticides and the powerful insect repellant DDT, ensuring that half a billion people get malaria every year, making them unable to work for weeks, leaving millions with permanent brain damage, and killing 900,000 per year, mostly women and children.

In their view, anything they support is sustainable. Whatever they oppose is unsustainable. Whatever they advocate also complies with the “precautionary principle.” Whatever they disdain violates it.

Worse, their perverse guidelines always focus on alleged risks of using technologies – but never on risks of not using them. They spotlight risks that modern technologies might cause, but ignore risks
the technologies would reduce or prevent.

Profit-seeking companies certainly cause accidents, some of which have killed hundreds of people or thousands of animals. However, the real killers are governments and anti-technology nonprofit activist corporations.

Their death tolls are in the millions – via wars and through misguided or intentional policies that institute or prolong starvation and disease from denial of electricity, food and life-saving technologies.

India, Uganda and other countries can fight back, by terminating the NGOs’ tax-exempt status, as Canada did with Greenpeace. They could hold pressure groups to the same standards they demand of for-profit corporations: honesty, transparency, social responsibility, accountability and personal liability.

They could excoriate the Big Green groups for their crimes against humanity – and penalize them for the malnutrition, disease, economic stagnation and death they perpetrate or perpetuate.

Actions like these would improve billions of lives, ensure true environmental justice for millions of families, and bring at least a measure of accountability to Big Green.

About the Author: Paul Driessen

Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death.

- See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/08/10/holding-big-green-accountable-electrify-africa-initiatives-should-finally-trump-environmentalist-opposition-to-big-power-plants/#sthash.yS6ep5jM.dpuf

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.

Originally posted in The Washington Times : DRIESSEN: Holding Big Green Accountable

Few Americans can imagine life without reliable, affordable electricity – for lights, refrigerators, air conditioning, computers, and countless other technologies that enhance and safeguard our lives.
But in Africa, India, and other regions some 2.5 billion people still lack electricity or must rely on little solar panels on their huts, a wind turbine in their village or unreliable power grids. They must be content with a cell phone, light bulb, and tiny refrigerator.
- See more at: http://www.cfact.org/2014/08/10/holding-big-green-accountable-electrify-africa-initiatives-should-finally-trump-environmentalist-opposition-to-big-power-plants/#sthash.yS6ep5jM.dpuf

Why is Dredging ok at other Ports but not Coal Ports??

Double standards once again by the anti coal groups!!

Why do the anti coal activist groups , such as Greenpeace, WWF, Fight for the Reef and various others allow dredging at other Ports?? Why do we never hear anything about that in the media.  Dredging is Dredging, no matter where it is done, the seabed floor is disturbed and the water will have a sediment plume.  We know that the impact from dredging is more at the dredging site compared to the disposal site as was proven by a recent study done on a dredging site at Western Australia.

Let's look at the Port of Brisbane - 

The Port of Brisbane Pty Ltd (PBPL) is responsible for the maintenance of 90km of navigational shipping channel, stretching from the northern tip of Bribie Island, across Moreton Bay, and into the Brisbane River. They need to ensure safe, deep-water access to the port is maintained.

 Source: Port of Brisbane

Now, the Great Barrier Reef is no where near Brisbane, but, there are other significant environmental areas around the Moreton Bay area.  Seagrass, mangroves, turtles, reefs, wetlands!!

 Dredging takes place within the Nationally Important Wetland area. 

The Moreton Bay Ramsar site is located in and around Moreton Bay, east of Brisbane in Queensland. Moreton Bay is a semi-enclosed basin bounded on its eastern side by two large sand islands. Islands in the site include all of Moreton Island, and parts of North and South Stradbroke Islands, Bribie Island and the Southern Bay Islands.

The seagrass areas provide food and habitat for fish, crustaceans, the internationally vulnerable Dugong, and the nationally threatened Loggerhead Turtles, Hawksbill Turtle and Green Turtle. Other nationally threatened species that occupy the site include the Oxleyan Pygmy Perch and Honey Blue-eye, Water Mouse and the Australia Painted Snipe.

The site supports more than 50,000 migratory waders during their non-breeding season. At least 43 species of wading birds use the intertidal habitats, including 30 migratory species listed on international conservation agreements.

Moreton Bay supports large numbers of the nationally threatened Green Turtle, Hawksbill Turtle, Loggerhead Turtle. Other nationally threatened species that the site supports are the Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, Honey Blue-eye, Water Mouse and the Australia Painted Snipe. The site is ranked among the top ten habitats in Queensland for the Internationally vulnerable Dugong.

 Source: Australian Government - Department of Environment

 Source: Queensland Government

43 species of waterbirds

Mangroves

Fishing

Why are the green groups not jumping up and down when the Port of Brisbane dredges. Aren't the seagrass beds and turtles, fishing grounds etc important around the Brisbane area??  Ofcourse they are.  They are just as important as the seagrass and turtles and corals in Northern Queensland where the coal ports need to dredge. 

This is proof enough, that it was never about dredging, it was always about the coal industry!!

Clearly the Port of Brisbane has dredged many times and not once did the Activist Groups complain about the dredging damaging the environment there.  The dredging there had little impact on the surrounding area just as it will have minimal impact around the coal ports in Northern Queensland when they need to dredge.  

Don't believe the lies and hysteria spread by the anti coal activist organizations. They have hidden agendas.

If dredging at other ports have no impact on the environment - then dredging at Abbot Point will have minimal impact!!

For anyone who is also interested, here are a couple more examples of major dredgings at other ports and marinas that we never heard about from the anti coal activist organizations. Each of these places have major significant habitat around the dredging and disposal areas.  Clearly , more proof that dredging has minimal impacts on the environment.

Port of Darwin:-        LNG Project Dredging Campaign                                                                                                  Darwin Harbour - sites of Conservation Significance

Port of Bundaberg:-  Port gets go ahead to Dredge
                                  Bundaberg Port Dredging
                                  Bundabergs Natural Assets

Port of Airlie:-           Dredging Photo from 2008
                                 GHD Report
                                   

Ports and Dredging

Dredging is vital to keep Ports operational!!

Ports have been operating in Australia for over 200 years and dredging has been a vital part of ensuring safe and efficient ports.

Dredging involves removing sediment from the seafloor for a variety of purposes, whether to deepen or maintain existing berth pockets and passageways or to create additional berths in harbours.  NQBP is port authority for three ports operating within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area which have been subject to strict environmental controls for many decades.

Throughout the past year there has been a concerted campaign of misinformation about dredging operations proposed at the Port of Abbot Point.  The misinformation generally claims that dredging will result in damage to the Great Barrier Reef.

NQBP has an impeccable track record with regards to dredging activities.  In accordance with Commonwealth and State legislative requirements, all NQBP dredging projects undergo rigorous environmental assessment of potential impacts.

While the science is extensive and detailed – the facts are simple:

 

• All coral reefs are protected from dredging;
• No toxic material is disposed at sea;
• Suitable relocation sites are selected carefully under strict regulation;
• All environmental sensitive areas are protected; and
• Australia needs ports and ports require dredging.

 Since 2002, NQBP has successfully undertaken 22 dredging campaigns and  have employed world class environmental management and monitoring programs for each campaign.  These serve as a far better guide to what can be expected than the deliberately misleading and wildly inaccurate claims.

Dredging - So What's the Big Deal??

Unfortunately in recent times and as a result of a well-planned campaign from conservation groups opposing port development, many people may now associate dredging with having a negative impact on the environment, rather than a sustainable activity which is critical to ensure ongoing safe and efficient shipping at our ports.

Dredging is completed to the highest standard to ensure any impacts are managed, and even more so in areas adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. With years of experience managing dredging projects, we have an excellent understanding of minimising impacts from dredging. We are not new to this.  In fact, we have found that offshore disposal of dredged material has a localised, temporary impact, with recovery in a relatively short period.  Some offshore relocation sites can even become more bio diverse and productive for marine life.

Managing our ports: Facts to consider - Relocation of Dredged material

Source : North Queensland Bulk Ports