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Dear MP,

Re: Port Services Amendment (disposal of material) Private Members Bill 

Please give your support to the upcoming Private Members Bill from your colleague Ms. Pennicuik which seeks to ensure the future health of our community and Port Phillip Bay by prohibiting dumping of toxic material in Port Phillip Bay. Rather than seeking to halt the Channel deepening project, Ms. Pennicuik’s Bill seeks to protect the health of our community and our irreplaceable natural asset by ensuring that harmful, poisonous or toxic material cannot be disposed of in Port Phillip Bay.
 
The toxic waste dump currently being constructed in the Bay as a result of the channel deepening project will accept untreated contaminated and toxic sediment from the Yarra which would not be acceptable to the EPA for disposal on land. Toxicants include cadmium, mercury, arsenic, dioxins, dieldrin, DDT and cyanide; this waste has been classified as 'unsafe for unconfined marine disposal' under the National Ocean Disposal Guidelines.
 
The Port Phillip Bay site will be the largest toxic waste facility in Victoria - 60 times the footprint of the proposed Nowingi site, which although liscened and with strict limits on annual and total volumes, was rightly rejected by the community and your government's planning process. 

Under current arrangements the Port Phillip Bay site is unlicensed.  This might mean the dump site could be used in future to dispose of other noxious material from any source. It would create an appalling legacy for current and future generations.
 
The present arrangements for dumping of toxins in the Bay are more akin to 19th Century practices rather than the 21st Century. Surely a more enlightened approach to our natural assets and community health is appropriate today?
 
I urge you to support Ms. Pennicuik’s Bill, so that we can ensure a better future for Victoria. 
 
Yours sincerely,
 
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bruce.atkinson@parliament.vic.gov.au; greg.barber@parliament.vic.gov.au; candy.broad@parliament.vic.gov.au; andrea.coote@parliament.vic.gov.au; richard.dalla-riva@parliament.vic.gov.au; kaye.darveniza@parliament.vic.gov.au; david.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au; philip.davis@parliament.vic.gov.au khalil.eideh@parliament.vic.gov.au; nazih.elasmar@parliament.vic.gov.au; bernie.finn@parliament.vic.gov.au; matthew.guy@parliament.vic.gov.au; peter.hall@parliament.vic.gov.au;
 
colleen.hartland@parliament.vic.gov.au; gavin.jennings@parliament.vic.gov.au; peter.kavanagh@parliament.vic.gov.au; david.koch@parliament.vic.gov.au; jan.kronberg@parliament.vic.gov.au; shaun.leane@parliament.vic.gov.au; john.lenders@parliament.vic.gov.au; wendy.lovell@parliament.vic.gov.au; justin.madden@parliament.vic.gov.au; jenny.mikakos@parliament.vic.gov.au; edward.o'donohue@parliament.vic.gov.au; martin.pakula@parliament.vic.gov.au; sue.pennicuik@parliament.vic.gov.au; donna.petrovich@parliament.vic.gov.au;

inga.peulich@parliament.vic.gov.au; jaala.pulford@parliament.vic.gov.au; gordon.rich-phillips@parliament.vic.gov.au; johan.scheffer@parliament.vic.gov.au; robert.smith@parliament.vic.gov.au; adem.somyurek@parliament.vic.gov.au; brian.tee@parliament.vic.gov.au; theo.theophanous@parliament.vic.gov.au; evan.thornley@parliament.vic.gov.au; gayle.tierney@parliament.vic.gov.au;  matthew.viney@parliament.vic.gov.au; john.vogels@parliament.vic.gov.au

Greens MLC Sue Pennicuik's second reading speech of the Bill is at:
http://tex.parliament.vic.gov.au/bin/texhtmlt?form=VicHansard.dumpall&db=daily&dodraft=1&house=COUNCIL&speech=9717&activity=Second+Reading&title=PORT+SERVICES+AMENDMENT+%28DISPOSAL+OF+MATERIAL%29+BILL&date1=11&date2=June&date3=2008&query=true%0a%09and+%28+data+contains+'PENNICUIK'+%29%0a%09and+%28+members+contains+'PENNICUIK'+%29%0a%09and+%28+hdate.hdate_3+=+2008+%29%0a%09and+%28+hdate.hdate_2+contains+'June'+%29%0a%09and+%28+house+contains+'COUNCIL'+%29%0a

Ms. Pennicuik has also produced a great YouTube video, standing in view of Boskalis grab dredge Goomai dredge spilling its toxic loads of sediment as it dredges in the Yarra. See: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkArvFU3ak8