Monday 18th August 2014

Four Corners and reporter Marian Wilkinson take you inside the agency that approved one of the most contentious environmental decisions this year. In January, the body tasked with protecting the Great Barrier Reef approved a plan to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil inside the marine park to expand the Abbot Point coal port.

The decision by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has shocked and angered the scientific community. Internal documents obtained by Four Corners reveal deep divisions between the scientists and bureaucrats behind the decision. They show that the dumping was approved despite previous recommendations from senior scientists that it be rejected.

"That decision has to be a political decision. It is not supported by science at all, and I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard." - Dr Charlie Veron, marine scientist

But the Chairman of the Marine Park Authority denies the decision was political and the Federal Environment Minister insists it will take place under the strictest environmental conditions.

Four Corners speaks to a senior director who recently left the Authority. He says bluntly that the dumping should not go ahead.

The dumping approval also comes as scientists are confirming a link between port dredging and deadly coral disease for the first time.

This week the Marine Park Authority released a report showing the Great Barrier Reef has significantly declined in just the last five years. It confirms climate change and ocean acidification are threatening the very survival of the reef.

It all comes at a critical moment in the reef's history. In June, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee criticised the dumping decision. Next year it will decide whether to place the Great Barrier Reef on the World Heritage "In Danger" list.

"We're dealing with a World Heritage area, the most important World Heritage area on the planet... Our own legislative mandate says 'the long-term protection and conservation of the values', and we're not doing that." - former director, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

BATTLE FOR THE REEF, reported by Marian Wilkinson and presented by Kerry O'Brien, goes to air on Monday 18th August at 8.30pm. It is replayed on Tuesday 19th August at 11.00am and 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview.

Further Development

Abbott government moves to ban offshore dumping in Great Barrier Reef marine park | The Sydney Morning Herald | 16 March, 2015

Abbot Point dredging: Spoil to be dumped on land, not in Great Barrier Reef waters - The Queensland Government has endorsed a new plan to dump dredge spoil from the Abbot Point port expansion near Bowen on land, rather than inside the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. | ABC News | 8 September, 2014

Transcript

The Battle for the Barrier Reef, 18 August 2014

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: How much do we really care about our most iconic national treasure? Welcome to Four Corners.

As a child, one of the first memorable things I learned about Australia's geography was that we could boast of having one of the seven great natural wonders of the world.

Not only could we be proud of having the most extensive and most spectacular reefs, but it was also a great little earner.

Perhaps the fact that it had been created without any pain or effort to the nation made it easier for us to take it for granted. But the bottom line is that, for nearly half a century as a journalist, I've been reporting, reading, watching and now presenting stories on its decline.

First it was the crown-of-thorns starfish and our rather tepid response to the risk. But bar cyclones, every threat ever since has come from human hand.

Now, just last week, another major report to Government with another dire warning that the Barrier Reef is in poor condition, has worsened since the last review five years ago and is expected to decline further.

Yet the same authority that released the latest alarming report on the reef, the authority that's charged with protecting the reef, has at the same time approved the dumping of dredged waste near the reef despite big problems the last time that happened - and even its own scientists are up in arms.

Marian Wilkinson's report includes disturbing new revelations.

MARIAN WILKINSON, REPORTER: Once a year, after a full moon, the Great Barrier Reef puts on nature's most spectacular orgy.

The mass spawning of millions of corals: the vital renewal of the world's largest reef system.

JOHN "CHARLIE" VERON, FORMER CHIEF SCIENTIST, AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE: Just massive amounts of the spawn goes absolutely everywhere. And then the ocean surface turns pink. It's amazing. Nothing like it in any part of the world, really.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But marine scientist Dr Charlie Veron is increasingly seeing the corals' fantastic life cycle under threat.

CHARLIE VERON: Well, the coral spawning is drastically reduced if something is wrong with the water quality.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Veron is Australia's godfather of coral reefs. His epic 'Corals of the World' is still a bible for marine scientists.

CHARLIE VERON: I have described and catalogued all the corals of the world and mapped them, photographed them.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But these days, the retired chief scientist for the Australian Institute of Marine Science is also documenting the collapse of the Great Barrier Reef.

CHARLIE VERON: Well, the inshore Great Barrier Reef has changed beyond recognition in my time. So I would go to places now that used to be flourishing corals and are now just pretty much dead. Um, that's the inshore Great Barrier that's been really badly damaged.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Dr Veron, like many Australian marine scientists, believes the Great Barrier Reef is under severe stress.

So he was alarmed by the Government's decision to allow the mass dumping of dredge spoil in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to build a bigger coal port.

CHARLIE VERON: That decision has to be a political decision. It is not supported by science at all. Um, and I was absolutely flabbergasted when I, when I heard of that decision. To dump it in the middle of the Marine Park, adding further stress to the environment of the Great Barrier Reef, is utterly reprehensible.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Last month the Federal Environment Minister signed the final approval for largest coal project in Australia's history.

Coal from the planned Carmichael mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin will be shipped through the port of Abbot Point, inshore from the Great Barrier Reef.

The coal project is controlled by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. A second Indian billionaire, G.V.K. Reddy, also has a huge mine planned in the Galilee with Gina Rinehart, and so does Clive Palmer.

MICHAEL ROCHE, QUEENSLAND RESOURCES COUNCIL: These are some of the biggest mines we'll ever see i-in Australia. And we, we don't have coal projects of this order and they are being designed at a scale, ah, that, again, that will develop very good cost structures.

MARIAN WILKINSON: To export all this coal, the port at Abbot Point wants to treble in size.

That's why the Federal Government has allowed the dredging of three million cubic metres from the seabed here, which will be dumped in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

GREG HUNT, FEDERAL ENVIROMENT MINISTER: I did a very careful and deep review and what was clear is that, ah, we could tighten and strengthen the conditions, confine what was being done to 1/180,000 of the area of the Marine Park - an area the size of Italy - and take clean, sand-based material a short distance to other clean, sand-based material.

And so the unequivocal advice that, er, we received was: this can be done safely.

JON BRODIE, RESEARCH SCIENTIST, JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY: It will have impacts on the Great Barrier Reef, basically: on sea grass, on dugong, on turtles and possibly even on coral reefs and other things. How much impact's hard to say, true, but dumping three million cubic metres, five million tonnes of sediment, even well offshore in deep water will have impacts.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The proposed dump site off Abbot Point is just four kilometres from the nearest coral reef and it's only three kilometres from the site of an historic Catalina plane wreck from World War II.

The remains of the victims were never recovered. The community outrage was so great, the port developer is now looking for an alternative site.

RICHARD LECK, WWF: I mean, it is quite extraordinary. Approval has been given to one particular site that even the proponent admits is unacceptable, um, yet there's no clear, ah, alternate site, um, for where that dump spoil should be, ah, should be dumped.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The dumping approval has made Abbot Point ground zero in the battle over the future of the Great Barrier Reef.

It's been by criticised UNESCO, by environmentalists and by scientists inside and outside the Government.

TERRY HUGHES, PROF., ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CORAL REEF STUDIES: My reaction was disappointment because the scientific evidence is, is very clear. Dumping dredge spoil is, is a dangerous thing to do to the Marine Park. The Marine Park is in declining condition and the last thing it needs is yet another stressor.

JON DAY, FORMER DIRECTOR, GREAT BARRIER REEF MARINE PARK AUTHORITY (GBRMPA): I believe there were alternatives that weren't properly considered when that decision was made. If we did a proper evaluation of the all the alternatives, that decision would not have been made.

JON BRODIE: In the end they wanted the cheapest, quickest, dirtiest option at Abbot Point and that's what they got.

MARIAN WILKINSON: What stunned many scientists is that the guardian of the reef, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, approved the dumping of the dredge spoil despite the concerns of its own experts.

Its decision is now being challenged in court and its chairman, Russell Reichelt, is under attack.

CHARLIE VERON: I regard Russ as a good friend and he's always had a very sharp eye for science. And so I am completely mystified by that decision. I would be most interested to see how it came about because it is certainly not based on science.

And I wonder about the independence of the Marine Park Authority. I don't know the politics of it but there must have been something going on because it's completely out of kilter with Russ' normal way of operating.

RUSSELL REICHELT, CHAIRMAN, GBRMPA: I would agree with the concerns of the scientists. I disagree with their conclusion that Abbot Point will harm the Great Barrier Reef. The risks around Abbot are low and, and approvals were given on that basis: they, they are manageable.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But a lot of your scientists in your Authority disagreed with you, didn't they?

RUSSELL REICHELT: No. The scien- the- what the scientists did was spend nearly a year helping me and colleagues understand the risks that could occur if they weren't mitigated.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But tonight a former senior director with the Marine Park Authority speaks out publicly for the first time against the Abbot Point dumping.

JON DAY: It's flagged to become the biggest coal port in the country, if not in the world.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Jon Day resigned from the Authority last month after two decades of dedicated service.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Should we be dumping spoil in the marine park?

JON DAY: I don't believe we should. Um, it's having adverse impacts. We've seen that elsewhere and there are alternatives. Sure, they may cost more, but again we're dealing with a World Heritage area, the most important World Heritage area on the planet, uh, a magnificent marine protected area that the world wants us to protect.

Our own legislative mandate says "the long-term protection and conservation of the values" and we're not doing that.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Four Corners can reveal the Abbot Point decision was bitterly fought inside the Marine Park Authority right up until January this year.

For months the Authority's key experts in Townsville advised their superiors and the Federal Environment Department that the dumping was unacceptable.

JON DAY: Well, I certainly think the advice was well based. I know the people who were involved in developing it, ah, and they're experts in their, in their field, so I know the advice was very well based.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The advice of the Marine Park Authority experts is contained here in hundreds of internal documents. Released under Freedom of Information to environmentalists, they include candid emails revealed tonight for the first time.

In June 2013, the Authority's director of environmental assessment, Adam Smith, drew up advice for a draft recommendation for the Authority to reject the Abbot Point dumping plan. It stated bluntly:

EMAIL FROM ADAM SMITH (voiceover): The likely impact of the dredging and disposal in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area currently proposed would be environmentally and socially unacceptable.

RUSSELL REICHELT: I encouraged those staff to air those views and the ch- the project changed considerably over the life to, to something that, at the end, a decision was made taking all of that into account that that disposal could occur safely.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But internal documents reveal the Authority only made the decision to approve the dumping after Reichelt put a new manager over the experts who had originally advised against it.

That manager, Bruce Elliot, was questioned last month at a Senate hearing about his expertise in marine science.

LARISSA WATERS, GREENS SENATOR: What are your qualifications?

BRUCE ELLIOT, GENERAL MANAGER, GBRMPA: Um, I don't have a background in marine science at all. Uh, my background is, uh, primarily in working for the Federal Government for pretty much all of my career: ah, defence, tax and now the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

RICHARD LECK: Something obviously happened where the expertise, you know, the very strong on-ground expertise that was generated from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Townsville was, was changed.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Soon after Elliot's appointment he emailed director Adam Smith, challenging the advice to reject the dumping.

EMAIL FROM BRUCE ELLIOT (voiceover): The draft proposal recommends a refusal, yet my own assessment is that it should be an approval (potentially with further conditions).

MARIAN WILKINSON: But the Authority's ports manager, Rean Gilbert, backed Smith and the recommendation to refuse the dumping, emailing him:

EMAIL FROM REAN GILBERT (voiceover): Most (if not all) of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority scientists would agree with the refusal recommendation.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But Bruce Elliot criticised the refusal recommendation on the dumping, claiming it was "skewed by a flawed risk assessment".

Gilbert objected.

EMAIL FROM REAN GILBERT (voiceover): The flawed risk assessment that Bruce refers to has been contributed to by all the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority scientists.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Those in the Authority against the dumping wanted the owners of Abbot Point, North Queensland Bulk Ports, to look at alternatives. This included extending the length of the loading trestles at the port.

This could cost more than ten times as much as dumping. It was opposed by the coal industry as unsafe.

MICHAEL ROCHE: Essentially what we've got there is, is a safety issue. Ah, th-th- that's a very exposed, ah, situation. Ah, it was a shipping safety issue. It wasn't really a cost issue but again: environmentally, did you really want to have a long trestle being built out into the Marine Park?

MARIAN WILKINSON: WWF's Richard Leck has scrutinised scores of the Authority's internal warnings on Abbot Point. They show a high risk of impacts on water quality and the local marine environment.

But last year the Gillard government rejected the advice to oppose it. Instead, it put off making a decision.

RICHARD LECK: The previous Federal Labor government had two opportunities to take that advice from the Marine Park Authority and they squibbed that decision both times.

MARIAN WILKINSON: When Greg Hunt became the new Environment Minister after the election, he approved the dredging and dumping at Abbot Point with what he called "the toughest environmental conditions". On advice from his department, he in turn formally advised the Authority to approve the dumping.

But Hunt insists the Abbot Point approval will be the last dumping of dredge spoil in the Marine Park.

GREG HUNT: I made the decision that this would be the last time that we were changing the practice. And since then we have stopped four inherited proposals from proceeding, which would have seen material deposited into the Marine Park. So five down to one. That was actually included in this decision. I remember the very words were: "This is a line in the sand".

MARIAN WILKINSON: The Marine Park Authority chairman defends the Abbot Point dumping and insists it is low-risk because of new conditions they imposed.

(To Russell Reichelt) The approval that you've given is risk-free or low-risk?

RUSSELL REICHELT: Will do no harm to the Barrier Reef. Um, the, the, the changes locally for a short time would be noticeable but would not be harming the corals, the dugong, the turtle, the seagrasses.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Well, how do you feel then that nearly every leading marine scientist in the country is opposed to this decision?

RUSSELL REICHELT: Look, I respect the, my scientific colleagues. Um, the... the... their view of the decision is couched on a very narrow view of the state of the system and this proposal. Um, I would agree with them that, overall, dredging should come down.

MARIAN WILKINSON: At a gathering of coral reef scientists in Canberra last month, the ructions over the Abbot Point decision were on public display.

JON BRODIE: We know now that the management arrangements, governance, at Abbot Point, um, were - how can I put it kindly? - less than optimal.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Jon Brodie was once director of water quality at the Marine Park Authority. He's now a vocal critic of the dumping in the Marine Park.

JON BRODIE: And even then, once it's out there, this extra fine material: it can be resuspended, ah, by the wind; um, if it's in deeper water, by cyclones, regularly and easily. And that will cause sediment plumes that will have impacts on, um, things like sea grass and coral that surround the dump site.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Abbot Point has brought to the surface a much bigger debate about port dredging and coral reefs.

In pristine waters off Lizard Island in far north Queensland, marine scientist Joe Pollock sees the Great Barrier Reef at its best.

But Pollock is here studying coral disease.

JOE POLLOCK, MARINE SCIENTIST, JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY: Well, disease in, in any system can be a natural phenomenon. So when we're at Lizard Island we see disease but we don't see super, super high levels of it.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Pollock and his colleagues last month released the first ever study linking coral disease with port dredging.

The study wasn't done on the Great Barrier Reef but in Western Australia, on the coral reefs off Barrow Island, the site of the country's largest single LNG project.

Seven million cubic metres of sediments were dredged here for the port in 2011.

JOE POLLOCK: Essentially what we found is that near the dredge impact sites, we had two times as much coral disease than we had at our, our nearby control sites.

MARIAN WILKINSON: And why do you think that happened?

JOE POLLOCK: Corals are composed of... they're basically part-animal and part-plant. So the plant part needs light to do photosynthesis and the, the animal part needs food to eat. So when you get dredging you stir up all this sediment. That sediment makes the water cloudy - that's called turbidity - and that reduces the amount of light that's available for the plant part to do photosynthesis. And as that sediment falls out of the water column onto the coral surface, it can clog up its ability to feed.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Pollock found the corals were seriously impacted 10 to 20 kilometres away from the dredge site. Many showed symptoms of a deadly disease called White Syndrome.

JOE POLLOCK: White Syndrome is basically like: you can think of it as if the skin started falling away from your hand, moving down, just leaving behind your bone. That lesion continues to move down your arm until basically all that's left of you is dead white skeleton.

So once that disease lesion has moved over that bit of coral, it can never recover.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Pollock's research has fed into the fraught debate over Abbot Point because it comes as all sides agree the Great Barrier Reef is under mounting stress.

A Marine Park Authority report, released last week, shows a serious decline over two thirds of the reef in the last five years.

RUSSELL REICHELT: I think the reef is under extreme pressure and I would agree with the bulk of scientific comment about the state of the reef. Coral cover is down. Uh, dugongs were, are down and, and, ah, very low along the probably 1,000 kilometres plus of the coastline affected by the floods.

The, um, seagrasses is of major concern because that's the food for dugong. It- seagrass also acts to clean up water quality by trapping fine sediment and it's at a significant low point now. In fact, Cairns area: it's as low as ever been recorded. So they're the big things that have changed.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Agricultural run-off from Queensland's rivers has been the big cause of the drop in water quality on the inshore reef.

Outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish have been linked to the run-off. Recent floods and cyclones have spread out the sediments in the run-off.

RUSSELL REICHELT: Most of the reduction in coral cover coincided exactly with the influx of the major storms. With turbid water, full of nutrients and algae, you find that the corals aren't able to recruit as easily. So when scientists say there's lost resilience, it means the corals are not growing back as quickly.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Jon Brodie has worked for years with government to clean up agricultural run-off impacting the reef. But he argues big port dredging and dumping in Queensland is undermining those efforts and adding more stress to the reef.

JON BRODIE: The real problem is that while agricultural pollution has been managed to some extent under the Reef Plan - not to the extent that the Government claims that it is, but it is being managed to some extent - port pollution and port governance is in disarray.

TERRY HUGHES: You can clearly see a sediment plume...

MARIAN WILKINSON: Until recently port dredging and dumping inshore from the Great Barrier Reef was regarded as having limited local impacts.

But the director of Coral Reef Studies at Townsville's James Cook University argues dredging is far more damaging to the reef than officially acknowledged.

TERRY HUGHES: We're now starting to see evidence that the dredge spoil goes across the whole br- breadth of the Great Barrier Reef. A portion of the dredge spoil is very fine sediment: tiny little particles that are suspended in the water column and they're dispersed by winds, by currents and by waves. And over a period of just a few months they can travel 100 kilometres or more. That evidence is now very clear.

There are other ways of getting ships to the coal.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Professor Hughes is calling for a complete ban on dumping dredge spoil, not only in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park but all the waters surrounding the reef.

TERRY HUGHES: The main danger for corals is sediment run-off from land. So we can try and improve the amount of sediment that's coming out of rivers and the Government is now spending hundreds of millions of dollars doing that - and it is working to a small extent. It's very expensive and we need to do more of that.

But what you don't do to turn that trajectory around is allow millions and millions of tonnes of dredge spoil to be dumped on the Great Barrier Reef.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The Queensland and Federal Governments have released plans to reduce dredging and dumping inshore from the Great Barrier Reef.

Both the Federal Minister and the Marine Park Authority say it's being done.

RUSSELL REICHELT: Ports are one of those things: they do need to be managed. Their footprint needs to be contained. We need to implement the port strategy, use master planning to bring down the total amounts of, ah, both capital and, in the long run, maintenance dredging. I believe that's doable.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But while the Government is now drawing the line in the sand, the Abbot Point dumping for now is going ahead.

And the backlash over that decision is coming not just from environmentalists and scientists but from Queensland's powerful tourism industry.

For decades Queensland's coal industry and its tourism industry lived side by side along the Great Barrier Reef. But now the demands of the coal companies and the tourism operators are colliding - and you can see it most clearly here at the gateway to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands.

Tourists flock to the Whitsundays from around the world. It makes up a big part of the $6.5 billion tourism industry on the Great Barrier Reef.

But the reef here lies offshore from Queensland's two big coal ports, Abbot Point and Hay Point, that saw a huge dredging operation in 2006.

TONY BROWN, PRESIDENT, WHITSUNDAY CHARTER BOAT INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION: We've had, um, quite a serious decrease in our water quality here in the Whitsundays. There's all sorts of evidence showing that.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Tony Brown is President of the Whitsunday Charter Boat Industry Association. He's demanding to know if the Abbot Point dumping will impact his business.

Visibility at diving sites here is a big issue. It's dropped dramatically in recent years as sediments in the water have shot up.

TONY BROWN: There's been an alarming jump in sediment. Um, It happened in 2010 and it went from basically one or two per cent to 23 per cent, so that's a very big concern. Where did this sediment come from? And this is part of the questions we've been asking for whether there's any relationship with sea dumping or whether it's something else.

MARIAN WILKINSON: For many tourists, seeing the reef is still a magical experience.

(To tourists) What did you see?

TOURIST 1: A lot of fishes.

TOURIST 2: Yeah, and also very big fishes and they come so close to us. It was amazing, yeah (laughs).

MARIAN WILKINSON: But tour operators know murky waters will affect visitor numbers and Brown is worried the dumping of three million cubic metres of spoil off Abbot Point will make visibility worse.

TONY BROWN: Um, look, our industry is disappointed because we felt that they should have made every effort to understand whether there is true impacts to our region because of sea dumping in the past.

Um, there has been an incredible rise in sediment in our area. Let's understand where this is coming from, what is, what is causing it and then make those kind of decisions. So, of course, it was a disappointing decision from our perspective.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The storms and flooding rivers in Queensland over the last five years are largely blamed for the sharp fall in water quality affecting visibility on the reef there.

RUSSELL REICHELT: Tony and-and his colleagues are accurately describing the low state of water quality. Um, the issue for me is not just the Whitsundays. That pattern is repeated along the southern two thirds of the Barrier Reef. Ah, the signals that we're getting from the AIMS satellite analyses is that it's primarily driven by rivers.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But tourism operators are now questioning whether the huge expansion of the coal port at Hay Point back in 2006 also played some part.

TONY BROWN: There's a lot of information out there showing that we have had a degradation in our water quality. Um, obviously we don't know whether it's Hay Point. It could be a whole host of other reasons but we certainly are concerned because it was a massive 8.6 million cubic metre, ah, sea disposal.

MARIAN WILKINSON: The fraught debate over dredging and dumping inshore from the Great Barrier Reef erupted at Gladstone three years ago.

The Ports Corporation here undertook a massive 46 million cubic metre dredge plan for an LNG project.

It was an environmental fiasco.

RICHARD LECK: You know, Gladstone is ground zero of poor management. And what that, um, what that says to us is that when you approve something like Abbot Point, which the safety net for the approval is a vast array of highly complicated conditions, our faith in those conditions actually being able to deliver is, is taken away because we just look at what happened only a few years ago, um, at Gladstone.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Most of the dredge spoil was to be contained behind this giant bund wall in Gladstone Harbour, the rest dumped at a site just 400 metres from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

In 2011 the State and Federal Labor governments insisted tough environmental regulations were in place.

TONY BURKE, FORMER ENVIRONMENT MINISTER (Four Corners, 2011): We had a taskforce working with different sections of my own agency, the marine division, the approvals division, and the Marine Park Authority were part of that as well.

FISHERMAN (Four Corners, 2011): Wait until you have a good look, Ted.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But Four Corners went to Gladstone that year to investigate the outbreak of a mysterious fish disease in the harbour.

TED WHITTINGHAM, OWNER, GLADSTONE FISH MARKETS (Four Corners, 2011): The red fins?

FISHERMAN (Four Corners, 2011): The red fins, that's the start of it. This fellow here's got the bad red eye bulged out, ready to what we call, we've been calling it "exploding."

MARIAN WILKINSON: Fish wholesaler Ted Whittingham told us then he believed the fish disease was linked to the dredging.

TED WHITTINGHAM, OWNER, GLADSTONE FISH MARKETS (Four Corners, 2011): The disease comes from stress. The stress is being caused by the development on the harbour. The stress is being caused from the run-off of acid sulphate soils. The stress is coming from the turbidity in the water.

MARIAN WILKINSON: State and Federal governments denied any link between the dredging and the fish disease. The ports said there was no significant drop in the water quality in the harbour.

But this year the new Federal Environment Minister released a damning report, revealing the bund wall design was flawed and it had leaked spoil sediments into the harbour.

TED WHITTINGHAM: We're told years down the track that the bund wall was leaking silt at the rate of 4,000 tonnes, ah, per day into the harbour, continually, ah, for over 12 months.

GREG HUNT: The reviewer, Andrew Johnson from CSIRO, made some, ah, pretty powerful findings. He said that the conditions were not good enough. The monitoring wasn't good enough. The assessment wasn't good enough. And he was right.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Ted Whittingham now lives in Brisbane.

TED WHITTINGHAM: Both my sons had left town and the business had totally collapsed. So there was just too much pain there.

MARIAN WILKINSON: He's deeply disappointed the independent inquiry was not allowed to investigate any links to the fish disease, despite a key study showing high levels of heavy metals in local turtles.

TED WHITTINGHAM: The, the Gladstone development destroyed a business that I spent 30 years building with my family and my sons. Um, and it's been totally destroyed. Um, of course I'm angry personally.

I'm also angry that from an environmental perspective, um, that the Government has, has been charged with, ah, managing one of the seven wonders of the world and they're quite happy to put this under threat for the sake of, er, very short economical development.

GREG HUNT: We have already reformed the processes quite dramatically and we have taken on board the lessons of a previous age, a previous government, a previous era.

Ah, we have not just done that: we have tripled, tripled the total personnel in the monitoring and compliance section of the department. We have put in place toughest - er, tougher conditions, in fact the toughest conditions in Australian history.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But the systemic failures in Gladstone have left environmental groups deeply sceptical about assurances over Abbot Point.

RICHARD LECK: There was a, a systematic massive failure with the bund wall that's meant to keep toxic and contaminated dredge spoil out of the harbour. Now, that does nothing to increase your faith in the ability of governments to implement and, and monitor their own approval conditions.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Since the approval of Abbott Point in January, the Queensland Resources Council has been at the forefront of defending the decision.

Head Michael Roche argues the objections are driven by green groups, opposed to the giant Galilee Basin coal mines that will use the port.

MICHAEL ROCHE: It's called 'Stopping the Australian Coal Export Boom' and it was a document prepared and led by Greenpeace but with the support of a whole range of other, ah, NGOs. It sets out a whole range of strategies around litigation, around creating fear around the Great Barrier Reef, about creating investor uncertainty.

MARIAN WILKINSON: In part he is right.

But the industry also knows coal from the mines will emit vast amounts of greenhouse gases that will impact the reef.

Last week's Marine Park Authority Report concluded that climate change and ocean acidification caused by greenhouse gas emissions are the most serious long-term threats to the reef.

RUSSELL REICHELT: Um, the scientists are disputing how, how it how it might play out. No one is disputing that it will have a dramatic effect on coral growth.

MARIAN WILKINSON: As the oceans are forced to absorb more and more greenhouse gases, scientists predict the reef waters will become more acidic and hostile to marine life, triggering extinctions.

And one senior coral scientist is now arguing the Galilee mines should not go ahead.

TERRY HUGHES: Well, if these new coal mines go ahead - and there's a big question over the whole economics of that - they will, um, put out a huge amount of CO2 emissions. That CO2 goes into the ocean. It causes ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is a big issue for the future of the Great Barrier Reef.

So instead of contributing to CO2 emission by developing these mines, Australia should be leading the charge in transitioning to renewable energy.

MICHAEL ROCHE: Oh, there's no doubt that the science suggests that over the long term, climate change can be a big problem and that's why there's so much work that's going in - a lot of it funded by industry and others - around adaptation. And that's a big focus of the work done by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

MARIAN WILKINSON: But fundamentally they're saying that what your members produce will ultimately kill the Reef. Is that, do you think that's what they're saying?

MICHAEL ROCHE: Well, Marian I, I don't accept that Australia should take upon itself responsibility for keeping our coal in the ground if it's still going to be demanded by places like China, India and South East Asia.

If our coal is not supplied, all we do is deny ourselves the jobs, the investment, the tax revenues to fund services but the coal will be supplied.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Whether the huge Galilee coal mines will go ahead is still an open question because the price of coal is falling.

But the Environment Minister does not believe the mines should be stopped because their emissions will threaten the reef.

GREG HUNT: Our task now is to ensure that the breakthroughs in technology and the reduction in emissions, which can be done through better technology, occurs. But if you're asking us to stop 100 million people in India having for the first time electrification or having significantly extended electricity - the great goal of bringing humanity out of deep, grinding poverty - we're not A) able to stop that as a country and B) we shouldn't be condemning people to poverty.

CHARLIE VERON: You now, it's a bandied-about phrase but the canary and the coal mine.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Since his retirement from Australia's Institute of Marine Science, Charlie Veron has no hesitation speaking out about the threat to the reef from greenhouse emissions.

CHARLIE VERON: It's incredibly serious. What we are doing now is pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate which has never happened remotely before. Now, this will acidify the oceans and that's... that'll be the end of it for corals. It's very, very serious. That won't happen until well on through this century but it will happen.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Thirty-three years after the World Heritage Committee listed the Great Barrier Reef as one of the wonders of the natural world, it is officially in poor shape and expected to decline.

This year the Committee sharply criticised Australia over the Abbot Point decision. Next year it will decide whether to put the reef on its "In Danger" list.

TERRY HUGHES: It would be a travesty if that happened. It would be incredibly damaging to the tourism industry. It would be damaging to Australia's reputation.

GREG HUNT: Well, it was put on the watch list under somebody else's time, but I am absolutely determined that it comes off the watch list under my time.

JON DAY: It's impossible to know whether the Committee will take that action. But I think, um, it's... the way the Committee was reacting this year, er, they were not happy. And unless, as I said, a lot happens between now and then, then it's entirely possible it could be listed.

MARIAN WILKINSON: Four Corners has learned it is now possible the Abbot Point dumping approval could be re-opened before the Committee meets next year.

Protecting the reef's extraordinary life and beauty has always been a trade-off with human activity but those who know the reef best say now, more than ever, we risk losing our most precious natural icon.

TERRY HUGHES: Scientists, believe it or not, are interested in more than just writing the obituary of the Great Barrier Reef. We want to be offering solutions for how to turn these bad trajectories downwards.

We have a lot of information about the Great Barrier Reef. It's probably the best studied coral reef in the world, so it's undeniable that, that it's in trouble. The question is: do we have the political will and the, the will of the public of Australia to turn this around?

CHARLIE VERON: No one will ever see the coral reefs of the world like I have. Because even if they have the opportunity, they're not there anymore like they were for me, and boy, how sad can that get?

I just wish this happened some other time but not in my lifetime. Mm. I should have, would rather be dead before this time, yep.

KERRY O'BRIEN: So, do we really care enough? That's the fundamental question.

You can see extended interviews with the Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, and a former director of the Marine Park Authority, Jon Day, on our website.

Next on Four Corners: the highly paid surgeon with a sex and cocaine addiction who was rejected by the public hospital system but continued to operate in the private.

That's the program for tonight. Until next Monday, good night.

Background Information

Reports and Inquiries

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Outlook Report, 2014

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Strategic Assessment Report

UNESCO Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Listing

UNESCO decision on Status of Australia's Great Barrier Reef deferred until 2015

Senate Inquiry On 25 March 2014, the Federal Senate referred the Great Barrier Reef to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report

Transcript of Dr Russell Reichelt, Chairman and Chief Executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority speaking at the Great Barrier Reef Environment and Communications References Committee on 23 July 2014

Relevant Media

Great Barrier Reef Still Facing Significant Threats ABC News 12th August 2014

The Abbot Point Gamble, Background Briefing, 9th March, 2014

Previous Four Corners Programs

Great Barrier Grief, November 2011

Beautiful One Day, April 2001