REVELATIONS that the Cook Government will not submit Westport’s environmental assessment until next year have heightened concerns that one of WA’s biggest infrastructure projects is racing ahead before its environmental impacts are properly scrutinised.
Speaking at a Greens community forum this week, fishing and conservation advocates warned the cumulative impacts of Westport, AUKUS and other major industrial developments could push the already fragile Cockburn Sound beyond recovery.
The concerns follow revelations during state budget estimates that the long-awaited Environmental Review Document will not be lodged until 2027, despite the government pressing ahead with legislation to establish the Westport Authority and discussing whether the project could be fast-tracked as a priority development.
Recfishwest operations manager Leyland Campbell said Cockburn Sound was too important to risk.
“This area of water is the most important area for recreational fishing in Western Australia,” he said.
“Hands down.”
Mr Campbell said the sound’s ecological health had already been fundamentally altered by the loss of seagrass.
“I think it’s worth noting the loss of that sea grass has fundamentally changed the productivity of that system,” he said.
“And that 80 per cent loss of seagrass, let’s put in some context. That is 1.8 times the size of Rottnest. Or that’s 2,000 times the size of Optus Oval.”
• Recfishwest operations manager Leyland Campbel
He said the proposed second shipping channel required not only for Westport but also other major projects would involve an unprecedented dredging campaign.
“They’re looking to dredge 35 million cubic meters of material in order to put that shipping channel in,” he said.
Mr Campbell warned dredging had multiple impacts beyond the excavation itself.
“Dredging’s a really challenging space because it destroys the environment as you’re sucking it up,” he said.
“It clouds the water and in a low flow environment such as Cockburn Sound, you’re not getting that flushing. It then settles over the remaining habitat and smothers it.”
Nuclear Free WA spokeswoman and former Conservation Council of WA campaigns director Mia Pepper said Cockburn Sound was still recovering from the industrial expansion of previous decades.
“The sound is in a really degraded state,” she said.
“It’s very fragile and it’s struggled to recover from the industrialisation throughout the ‘60s to the ‘80s where there was a huge amount of dredging in the bay.”
Ms Pepper said contaminants buried in the seabed posed another risk.
“There’s huge amounts of heavy metals and contaminants that are sitting in the sediment at the bottom of the sound, which now is a little bit like a time bomb in terms of future dredging where a lot of those contaminants and heavy metals could be mobilized in the sound.”