PAREPG Current Issues and Actions

Port Adelaide Residents Environment Action Group (PAREPG) has since 1984 been acting to prevent air and water pollution and environmental damage in the Port area and work towards the restoration of a healthy environment.

Updates on some of our current activities are:

• Nuclear submarine construction at Osborne
• ADBRI (aka Adelaide Brighton Cement )
• Protection of the Magazine Creek Wetlands at Gillman
• Trial dredging program
• Biodiversity Park
• Another discovery

For further information on any issue, or if you would like to raise others, please contact us.

Nuclear Submarine Construction at Osborne

Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS (PACOA) were successful in using the ABC’s 7:30 Report to get national coverage of the issues related to the construction and maintenance of nuclear submarines at Osborne, on the Port River at the tip of the LeFevre Peninsula.

The segment is available on the ABC news site together with a text version

The story deals with the lack of consultation on nuclear waste storage at Osborne in the recently passed Australian Naval Nuclear Power Safety Act 2023

The Act does not limit the type of waste to be stored at Osborne, nor the period it can be stored there.

The federal Defence department and the federal Minister for Health Mark Butler, claim it will be ‘’Low level Waste”, similar to the waste from nuclear medicine.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) lists  several low level waste categories. A recent Australian Radioactive Waste Agency (AWRA) report shows that some medical waste will requires long term storage.

According to ARPANSA  even the Very Low Level Waste category contains low levels of short-lived radioactivity. And by short lived, ARWA means activity that should decay to below exemption levels within 300 years.

The 7.30 Report story reports local federal MP, Mark Butler, saying “residents would be consulted closer to when the facility would be established” but stated the nuclear waste facility would go ahead even if residents did not want it.

PAREPG continues to meet with representatives of both the federal Australian Naval Infrastructure (ANI) and the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) on these issues and on the environmental impacts of Defence developments on the Peninsula and to the Port River. Recent developments include:

• A 700 page “Strategic Assessment Report” dealing with the proposed construction facility was scheduled for release in September but has been delayed until December.
  The delay is due to a number of issues including a revision of the design of the dock to reduce sediment accumulation, and contaminated soil assessment. The report will be seeking public comment.
• A LeFevre Peninsula Review by the Department of Premier and Cabinet is due for public release in February 2025, with comment due April.

ADBRI (aka Adelaide Brighton Cement )

The long-awaited Environment Improvement Plan (EIP) was approved by the EPA on 15/11/24. The EIP has 22 projects and is certainly an improvement on previous plans.

However most major projects in the EIP call on more detailed plans to be completed by December 2025, meaning the first construction opportunity will be in early 2026.

The EIP is due to be completed by 31/10/27.

Rehabilitation after the May 2024 fallout still has ongoing problems:

• Major delays have occurred with some systems still to be cleaned.
• Some solar systems have been cleaned a number of times but the results are still unsatisfactory.

The next Community Liaison Group meeting is Monday 16th December 2024 at 6:00 pm in the PAE Town Hall. The meeting is open to the public. Remediation problems and the use of Refuse Derived Fuels, including plastics, for the production of cement will be up for discussion.

Protection of Magazine Creek Wetlands at Gillman

Spoil from tunnelling for the new Torrens to Darlington motorway is still planned to be dumped right next to the Magazine Creek wetlands at Gillman.

As our local MP, Dr Susan Close has said, these wetlands are “one of the few suitable freshwater sources in the region for shorebirds”. They also treat polluted storm-water from our northern suburbs before it reaches the Port River and sea.

An estimated 3.9 million cubic metres of tunnel spoil are planned to arrive by truck every 4 minutes, 24/7 for several years!

This spoil will form the raised foundation required for a new industrial area to protect it from the risk of sea level rise.

The noise, dust and light pollution of these operations will most likely severely impact on the birdlife and storm-water treatment viability of Magazine Creek wetlands.

The Department for Infrastructure and Transport (DIT) has lodged a development application (DA) for the first stage of this project in Lot 501, adjacent to the Magazine Creek wetlands (see map below).

This stage will involve the construction of infrastructure and facilities to support the operations of the spoil receival sites. If this is approved by the Minister for Planning, it will almost certainly guarantee that the rest of the project will follow and spoil will cover the larger (Lot 502) area stretching east to the edge of the Range wetlands and Port River seawall.

This is despite significant concerns from the EPA and Port Adelaide Enfield Council about soil contamination in the area, possible groundwater contamination and restrictions on its flood mitigation capacity.

PAREPG member Liz Millington appeared in person at the State Commission Assessment Panel (SCAP) on 30/10/24  to speak to PAREPG’s submission opposing the depositing of tunnel spoil at Gillman.

Trial dredging program.

PAREPG is represented on the latest consultation group, the Northern Beaches Stakeholder Forum, formed for the “Trial dredging program”.

The program dredges sand from just south of the North Haven Marina and takes it via barges to West Beach where a number of deposition methods have been trialed.

On the eve of actual dredging, without any consultation, the scope was broadened to also take sand from sources close to West Beach, which stoked the ire of those at West Beach who still believe a pipeline to pump sand from the northern beaches is the only solution.

The DEW coastal management group has now been completely replaced.

The revised strategy seems to be:

• Transport sand to eroded beaches using dredging/barges rather than trucks or pipelines
• Mine sand from offshore deposits accumulating along the coast, or other major offshore sources
• A recognition that North Haven sand is at best “marginal”. Due to the large proportion of fines

18,000 cubic meters was dredged from a relatively small area (200x100m) at North Haven. LIDAR and other survey techniques are being used to assess the recovery of the area dredged.

If this approach is to be scaled up, PAREPG will be advocating for a more complete understanding of the nearshore ecology.

See the DEW website for their information on managing sand on Adelaide’s coastline:

Biodiversity Park

Biodiversity Park PAREPG and friends have continued re-vegetation of coastal plants in the last week of June this year including some new species provided by Green Adelaide – Quandong (Santalum acuminatum) and Slender Daisy Bush (Olearia passerinoides). 

Two events were held in late August and late September to weed, remove old tree guards and clean up so thanks to our supporters.

Renewal SA is the interim land manger until the Park is granted conservation status and are providing watering and weeding contracts with LCS Landscapes over the spring and summer months ahead.

However, the poor rainfall this year has challenged the new plantings.

 A strategy for planting in at Biodiversity Park in 2025 will include choosing lizard friendly plants and maintaining the open spaces that they prefer.

Please contact us if you would like to become an active friend of the Park.

Another discovery

At the last Biodiversity Park, working bee participants were treated to yet another discovery.

Ant-lions are alive and well in Biodiversity Park!

Ant lions, it seems, are not a single species but a whole order of animals.

According to Wikipedia, this form of ant-lion larva:

“Having marked out the chosen site with a circular groove, the antlion larva begins to crawl backward, using its abdomen as a plough to dig up the soil.

Using one of its front legs, it places heaps of loosened particles upon its head which it then flicks clear of the scene of operations.

Continuing in this way, it gradually works its way from the circumference toward the centre.

As it slowly moves round and round, the pit gradually gets deeper and deeper, until the slope angle reaches the critical angle of repose (that is, the steepest angle the sand can maintain, where it is on the verge of collapse from slight disturbance), and the pit is solely lined by fine grains.

By digging in a spiral when constructing its pit, the antlion minimises the time needed to complete the pit.

When the pit is completed, the larva settles down at the bottom, buried in the soil with only the jaws projecting above the surface, often in a wide-opened position on either side of the very tip of the cone.

The steep-sloped trap that guides prey into the larva’s mouth while avoiding crater avalanches is one of the simplest and most efficient traps in the animal kingdom.

The fine grain lining ensures that the avalanches which carry prey are as large as possible.

Since the sides of the pit consist of loose sand at its angle of repose, they afford an insecure foothold to any small insects that inadvertently venture over the edge, such as ants.

Slipping to the bottom, the prey is immediately seized by the lurking antlion; if it attempts to scramble up the treacherous walls of the pit, it is speedily checked in its efforts and brought down by showers of loose sand which are thrown at it from below by the larva.

By throwing up loose sand from the bottom of the pit, the larva also undermines the sides of the pit, causing them to collapse and bring the prey with them.”