Environmentalists versus business interests at public meeting
“THIS Government wants it (Perdaman’s planned Collie urea plant) so there is no way anything we can say or do will stop it,” was a statement that attracted no obvious disagreement at the chemical company’s public consultation meeting in Collie on Monday night.
About 70 people — locals, some from Bunbury and some from further afield — turned out to hear Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers (PCF) executives say they wanted public feedback on the planned $3.5 billion urea manufacturing plant on the planned Shotts Industrial Park seven kilometres east of Collie.
They wanted to hear what Collie people wanted of PCF as they were going through the Public Environ-mental Review (PER) and other permit and approvals processes.
Although there were many concerns raised about environmental matters, others welcomed the 1500 jobs the plant would offer during construction between next year and 2013 and the 200 permanent jobs when production starts in 2013.
The turn-out included many prominent business people, representing mining, service and light manufacturing industries and real estate, plus farmers and workers who were hoping the plant might mean good jobs for townspeople.
Local government in Collie and Bunbury was also represented.
A sizeable minority was concerned about the plant’s likely environmental impact on the Collie basin’s water resources and air quality.
Fears were also expressed about what would happen if there was ever an accident at the plant.
Perdaman projects manager Joseph McCarthy said the plant had been assigned 12 gigalitres from the Wellington Dam and that would cover all the requirements of the plant’s on-site power station and urea manufacture.
But PCF was also investigating backup supplies and talking to Griffin Coal and Wesfarmers Premier Coal about getting the water from mine dewatering.
It was also interested in the Collie River diversion project.
“Whatever we get will have to be treated,” Mr McCarthy said “We will have our own desalination plant.”
The extracted salt would be piped to the sea. Mr McCarthy was asked why water could not be piped from the desalination plant being built down on the coast near Binningup, north of Bunbury.
“Desalinating seawater and pumping it up the hill from the ocean would be prohibitively expensive,” he said.
Collie River campaigner Ed Riley asked if locals were going to have a Wellington Dam National Park or a Wellington Dam industrial park.
Governments in other parts of Australia were buying back water as fast as they could but “WA is going the other way”, he said.
People only had to look at rivers in other parts of Australia to see what was likely to happen to the Collie River. He also raised the likely effect of the urea plant on Collie’s already-polluted “air corridor upstairs”.
Bryce Skarratt, of GHD which is handling Perdaman’s environmental review, said the first draft had just been returned, with comments, by the Environmental Protection Authority. Its points would be attended to and a revised plan sent back to the EPA for further assessment.
At this point, an audience member declared: “This Government and the last one are about as environmentally friendly as the Exxon Valdez.”
Several young men in the audience expressed the hope the plant would mean work primarily for Collie people and not those “over the hill”.
The meeting was broken up into discussion groups, based on tables, which were asked for three main points they thought important.
Water, emissions and employment were the top concerns.
Business opportunities for service industries was also raised, as were other environmental impacts from land clearing and possible accidents were also raised.
Farmers asked that Perdaman consider selling some of its urea locally instead of exporting it all, because Australia was a urea importer.
Mr McCarthy said the urea plant represented a significant opportunity and where possible Perdaman would source products and services locally.
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