Coode Island options bad news for environment

By Megan Rush

MELBOURNE -- The Coode Island Review Panel, convened after last year's fire at the hazardous chemicals terminal in Melbourne's inner west, has looked at seven possible “solutions”, including an upgrade of the present site, and then narrowed the options to three:

• an upgrade of Coode Island;

• Kirk Point (on the western side of Port Phillip Bay, 10 km from Geelong);

• Point Wilson (5 km south of Kirk Point).

Keeping the chemicals at Coode is very unpopular with thousands of voters, but the relocation options have serious environmental consequences.

Kirk Point and Point Wilson are in an area very important to bird life. The Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union (RAOU) considers Kirk Point to be a totally unacceptable site because this area contains 75% of the world's orange bellied parrots, which number only 150.

The area is also considered internationally significant under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance signed in 1971 and amended by the Paris Protocol in 1982. It is the second most important wintering ground in Australia for migratory wading birds. These birds travel approximately 25,000 km to winter here.

Marine ecology and wildlife habitats in the “green belt” between Geelong and Werribee would be endangered.

If Coode Island were relocated to Kirk Point or Point Wilson, the RAOU recommends a minimum buffer zone of one kilometre between the site and significant areas. This would be impossible because Lake Borrie, less than half a kilometre north of the planned onshore site at Kirk Point, is the habitat of the rare freckled duck. The shoreline at both sites is important for waders, which feed in the intertidal zone. Salt marsh near both sites is feeding grounds for the orange bellied parrot.

Even if the chemical facility were built on artificial offshore islands in these two locations, the migratory path of the waders would be interrupted. Waders are known to have been killed by crashing into obstacles in their migratory paths.

Another argument against relocation is that some highly viscous

chemicals will still have to remain at Coode Island because they cannot be piped. Will this mean that we end up with two hazardous chemical sites?

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