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Newport Power station owners Ecogen Energy Pty. Ltd. are still not happy with the Port Corporation, in spite of what the Port may be saying. To date, Ecogen and the Port Corporation have not been able to agree on a suitable time for dredging in the Yarra adjacent to the Power station operations.

In order to avoid potential impacts on migrating Australian grayling and Australian mudfish, the Port proposes not to dredge in the Yarra or Hobsons Bay during spring. Both fish are listed as "vulnerable" species under Federal or state environmental protection legislation and the Port is obliged to take measures to protect them. Grayling and mudfish migrate through the Yarra and out into the salt water during autumn and spring. Ecogen had planned a major maintenance shut down in spring of 2008, so has asked the Panel assessing SEES to examine whether the Port's undertaking to protect the fish is really necessary. As it stands, dredging would occur when the Plant has re-opened for business. Ecogen says that if the area around the power plant is declared off-limits for dredging in spring 2008 due to the fish, it would demand compensation from the corporation for "significant" financial costs.

The power station draws over 17,000 litres per second of Yarra water in to cool its turbines. Ecogen is rightly concerned that released contaminants from the almost 4 million cubic metres of contaminated sediment from the Yarra bed might affect their plant equipment, and that released toxicants might be passed through the power station plant and onto the adjacent "Warmies", where hundreds of people fish every week. 

Ecogen presented these concerns to the first EES Panel in 2004. Three years later, the Port Corporation still has no solution to this critical issue. Liz Minchin's article in today's Age (link below) tells the story of just how far from agreement the Port and Ecogen are. 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/fish-fight-to-sink-bay-dredging/2007/05/11/1178390556500.html

Melbourne's power supply is under more stress than ever before with drought affecting power production. In an unprecedented development, Power companies have been forced to purchase emergency supplies of water off the internet, after the drought has left them short of what they need to run major generators in the LaTrobe Valley (The Age Thursday May 10th 2007).

Never mind that though - apparently it is more important to squeeze a few more oversized ships into the Port of Melbourne according to some.

It's time to ask Mr. Bracks who the beneficiaries of this project really are.

It isn't Ecogen or its clients, it's certainly not the thousands of Bay related businesses, it's not the hundreds of thousands of fishers and swimmers who use the Bay and whose health may be threatened by the release of millions of tonnes of contaminated sediments into the Bay, it’s certainly not any of the species that inhabit the Bay......Hmmmmm.  Apparently quadrupling container movements through the Port by 2035 has become more important than ensuring that our hospitals, schools, public transport system and hundreds of thousands of homes function normally.

The Port's own data shows that only around 5% of ships can’t load to capacity - nowhere near the 30% or more that the Port claims in its promotional literature. The channel deepening project is the fantasy of the Port Corporation - it is not a plan for the best future of the Bay or Melbourne. The Channel Deepening SEES is nothing more than the ambit claim of a Corporation which wants further control of public assets – the Bay and the Yarra River. Let's keep that in mind when next we read the Port Corporation’s literature.