23rd January, 2008

BHP Billiton’s announcement this morning that it will throw $390 million away on a third coal export terminal on Newcastle’s Kooragang Island is nothing more than a political tactic to pressure the State Government into rushing approval for the project, according to the Hunter Community Environment Centre.

HCEC spokesperson, Georgina Woods, said, “No third coal terminal will be built until and unless highly toxic sediments are removed from the bed of the south arm of the Hunter River.

“This is a blatant attempt by BHP to pressure the Department of Environment and Climate Change to licence them to disturb the toxic material that is the poisonous aftermath of their steel mill. BHP are yet to submit a remediation plan for this ten-year-old pollution legacy, so their confidence that the coal terminal will go ahead is misplaced.

The bed sediments of the south arm of the Hunter River, immediately adjacent to the proposed coal terminal are contaminated with chemicals such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens and can cause death in high doses.

The bed sediments were declared as a remediation site under NSW pollution law more than six years ago, and as a result, BHP Billiton is required to remediate the site. Problems with the remediation process have recently emerged since the volume of contaminated sediment is much higher than originally thought, and hotspots of toxicity have been found in unexpected places in the river.

“It is imperative that the needs of the community and the environment are put ahead of the profits of multinational coal corporations. We cannot allow environmental standards and public health to be compromised. If a safe way of removing and remediating the polluted sediments cannot be found, then the coal loader should not go ahead. ”