Brad Fish: "The majority of the ports within the Great Barrier Reef, or our ports at least, sorry, have longer trestles coming out which constructors of the jetties are actually constructed two, three, four kilometres offshore.  And that’s to minimise dredging.  But we still do require some dredging to take the silo ships that we’re looking to accommodate.  Again we have been dredging now for well, well over 20 years.  Dredging in general in the Reef is probably more 30 or 40 years.  And all those projects have been carried out successfully on the way through.  Again within Australia here both State and Federal Governments we have probably the tightest most stringent regulatory requirements on a whole range of areas including dredging.  We are required to abide by international guidelines.  We meet every one of those guidelines where we  possibly exceed those guidelines on the way through with respect to the testing of the material to ensure that again this is one of the myths I suppose out there as well, that the material we’re dredging is toxic and it’s damaging to the environment.  We are dredging clean material and essentially relocating it to another area of the seabed in a like for like area.  So we are very confident that these dredging projects can be undertaken and with again minimal impact to the environment and in a very responsible way."

Categories: Economy, Government, Great Barrier Reef
Author: Brad Fish