Some old news...Centerx Metals sees no environmental threat for...

Some old news...


Centerx Metals sees no environmental threat for Port Lincoln shipments
Sunday, 03 May 2009
Centrex Metals answered the seafood industry's concerns about the effect of iron ore exports on the marine environment with an assurance that there would be zero impact.

Mr Gerard Anderson MD of Centrex said that hematite, which the company planned to export from Port Lincoln was a very stable oxide of iron and independent research by the University of South Australia showed very low levels of risk to the marine environment if it was accidentally spilled into Boston Bay during handling.

Mr Anderson said that hematite had very low solubility, 14.4 parts per billion in Boston Bay seawater. He said that "Under the worst case of a catastrophic sinking, 1.008 kilograms would be released into Boston Harbor. The environmental risk posed by loading hematite from the main wharf is so infinitesimally small that it can reasonably be called zero."

With the amount of iron ore exported from other Australian ports Mr Anderson said that if the marine environment was that sensitive to iron there should have been thousands of examples of algal blooms.

He said that "We cannot find a single occurrence in the literature that is directly linked to iron ore. If iron ore levels do increase as a direct result of Centrex operations then immediate action will be taken to rectify the situation with the regulator. The regulator will decide if operations will be stopped."

Mr Anderson said that he did not believe the seafood industry's self imposed clean green image was in danger but Mr Ellis said that the risks were still very high to the fishing and aquaculture industries for the sake of eight jobs.

However a CSIRO report commissioned by the local fishing industry said that the UniSA report did not resolve the issue of whether iron ore from a shipping operation in Port Lincoln would have a significant impact on the local marine ecology. The CSIRO report said that literature indicated 0.000000005 grams of bio-available iron per liter could trigger a phytoplankton bloom in areas where iron was limiting and there was sufficient supply of other nutrients, and recommended further research of the potential impact including quantifying the existing conditions, and using bioassays to determine how local phytoplankton respond to additional iron.

(Sourced from abc.net)

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