At-sea dumping of dredge spoil: an overview of the Australian policy and legislative framework

ABSTRACT

The increase in port development along the Queensland coast, and the associated dredging activity, has led to increased environmental concerns for the health of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). While such impacts are of particular immediate concern for the GBR region, the issues surrounding dredging and dumping of dredge spoil are common to many other coastal regions in Australia and elsewhere. In this article, we review the current Australian policy and legislation affecting the dumping at sea of dredge spoil and the incentives this creates in terms of minimising damage. We find that the current complex framework may not necessarily provide appropriate incentives to minimise damage once approval has been obtained, although more recent policy interventions may help encourage innovation in more environmentally friendly actions. We also review the potential for other incentive-based management systems to limit environmental damage from dredging, drawing on the experiences in fisheries and marine biodiversity conservation.

KEYWORDS:

• Dredge spoil
• port development
• legislation
• incentives

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Samantha Paredes http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6518-6000

Sean Pascoe http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6581-2649

Louisa Coglan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5730-7845

Sarah Jennings http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5760-4193

Satoshi Yamazaki http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1279-2706

James Innes http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1975-6062

Notes

1 Capital dredging involves the development of new ports or expanding shipping channels in existing ports. This is followed by maintenance dredging, which involves ensuring the channels remain functional. While volumes of maintenance dredge spoil are generally less than those from the original capital dredging, they occur more frequently (i.e. capital dredging is a ‘one-off’; maintenance dredging is an ongoing activity) and over time may still be substantial (Bray 2008).

2 Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment (Capital Dredge Spoil Dumping) Regulation 2015 (Cth).

3 GBRMPR regulation 88RA(2).

4 Explanatory statement of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Amendment (Capital Dredge Spoil Dumping) Regulation 2015 (Cth).

5 Port of Abbot Point; Port of Gladstone; the ports of Hay Point and Mackay and the Port of Townsville (SPDA ss 5 and 7).

6 See Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Regulations 2000 (Cth) Part 5 – Assessing impact of controlled actions, Division 5.6 – Fees.

7 This includes but is not limited to: the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority’s Dredging and Spoil Disposal Policy (2004), Water Quality Guidelines for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (2010) and the Memorandum of Understanding between Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and Queensland Ports Association 2009 (Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority 2016a).

8 See for example the EPSDA (Cth) s 35 and Western Australian Marine (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 (WA) s 29.

9 In contrast, a self-assessment by EIA professionals considered that the quality of EIAs was good (Jalava et al. 2010).

10 See for example EPBCA ss 74AA and 142A; EPSDA ss 10A, 10C and 36; GBRMP Act s 38BA.

11 See for example, EPBCA s 196.

12 See for example Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) s 4AA.

13 See for example GBRMP Act s 38BB.

14 See the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Regulations 1983 (Cth) regulation 5, where if the material to be dumped exceeds 100,000 m³ the fee is $23,500 and if the material to be dumped is less than 100,000 m³, the fee is $10,000.

15 See for example Western Australian Marine (Sea Dumping) Regulations 1982 (WA) regulation 5.

16 Some earlier schemes required an upfront posting of the bond, creating liquidity constraints in cases where the proponent could not raise the bond (Shogren et al. 1993).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Marine Biodiversity Hub, a collaborative partnership supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP), CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). This work was also supported by funding from the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC) [Project 2008/306].