BUILDING the T4 coal-loader could expose workers to a toxic cocktail of chemicals and dangerous wastes dumped on Kooragang Island during decades of steelmaking by BHP.
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But loader operator Port Waratah Coal Services says T4 will improve the environment because capping and raising the site will ensure the heavy metals, hydrocarbons, asbestos and other contaminants are buried deeper than they already are.
Others, however, say the area should have been cleaned up first, especially as contaminated groundwater is leaching out of at least some of the underground waste ‘‘cells’’ dug into Kooragang.
Contamination on Kooragang is well-known, but reports commissioned by the coal services and available from the NSW Department of Planning website give the most detailed picture yet of the materials involved.
Contamination profiles vary across the site, but the reports note high or above-limits levels of various materials.
They include a range of heavy metals and long-chain hydrocarbons as well as lead dust mixed with asbestos and extremely acidic groundwater.
On the Newcastle side of the river, where the coal services is planning two T4 berths to be built in a subsequent stage of the loader, high levels of benzene and other hydrocarbons have been found.
The reports say the movement of groundwater is likely to speed up during construction, as up to 7million cubic metres of sediments from the Hunter River are dredged up and dumped on the site.
The river will be dredged to a depth of 15metres from less than two metres in some places.
The reports say weight of the silt used to raise and cap the site will ‘‘consolidate’’ or ‘‘squeeze’’ the soil underneath, forcing water out of the silt and into Kooragang’s two main underground aquifers.
But the increase would be offset by ‘‘a net decrease in the contaminant flux, once the site is capped’’.
Correct Planning and Consultation for Mayfield Group spokesman John Hayes said Newcastle was given a second-rate option in burying the steelworks waste rather than digging it out and remediating the site.
But coal services chief executive Hennie du Plooy said the contamination was ‘‘secured safely underground in concurrence with government regulations’’.
‘‘If anything, the site is particularly suitable for a coal terminal given that the waste will be even further covered, and further removed from human and environmental impact,’’ Mr du Plooy said.
