The Port Service Amendment (Disposal of Material) Bill will be made public after the second reading scheduled for Wednesday 11 June.

The bill aims to prevent the disposing of contaminated dredged material into Port Phillip Bay if by doing so the condition of waters is made or could be reasonably expected to be made noxious, poisonous, harmful or potentially harmful to human health, wildlife or plants, or detrimental to any beneficial use made of those waters.

This provision is based on section 39 of the Environmental Protection Act 1970, which creates an offence of pollution of waters in these circumstances.

"The Port of Melbourne Corporation's plan to dredge up four million tonnes of toxic sediment from the Yarra River and dispose of it in the Bay poses serious ecological and public health risks. The Yarra sediment, which is contaminated from decades of industrial runoff, contains cadmium, mercury, arsenic, dieldrin, and DDT and other dangerous toxicants", said Ms Pennicuik.

"The sediment has all been classified as 'unsafe for unconfined marine disposal' under the National Ocean Disposal Guidelines."

"Despite this, the Port of Melbourne Corporation plans to dump it in sand covered bunds in the middle of Port Phillip Bay. The material could be left uncovered for anywhere between 140 days to 5 years, during which time it may diffuse into the waters of the Bay, threatening marine life and human health."

"The underwater method of sand encased bund containment that the Port Corporation has chosen is new unproven technology with a design life of only 30 years. Many toxins last much longer than that."

"The Port of Melbourne should be required to comply with the Environmental Protection Act and State Environmental Protection Policies, which state that where practical, land disposal should be preferred."*

"The Port has never adequately investigated options for disposing and treating of the material on land. They were criticised by the Independent Panel for the SEES for not undertaking a separate cost-benefit analysis of disposing and treating the most contaminated material on land."  **

"Of course, the Greens preference is for this costly, risky and completely uneccessary project to be halted, so that the community is not faced with the dredging of tonnes of contaminated material in the first place", she said.


* Section 38 EPA, State Environmental Protection (Policy Waters of Victoria) Schedule F6: s 13, 2001 Best Practice Environmental Management Guidelines EPA 3.1, 3.5.

**p98, Appendix to the  Independent Panel Report into the Channel Deepening SEES.