Adani says it released water into the Caley valley wetlands after Cyclone Debbie, but claims photos showing apparent contamination are ‘misleading’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

New footage reveals the scale of coal dust contamination of nationally significant wetlands after Cyclone Debbie hit Adani’s Queensland port, environmentalists claim.

Helicopter and drone flyovers recorded footage showing a large part of the Caley Valley wetlands “smothered” by a “thick black sludge of coal”, together with lumps of coal scattered on a nearby beach where turtles nest, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Australian Marine Conservation Foundation said.

The groups commissioned the footage following the release of floodwaters from the Abbot Point coal terminal after Debbie’s torrential rains last month.

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Adani, which released the water under a temporary licence from the Queensland environment department, claimed aerial photos showing the wetlands as black were “misleading and are not representative of the water quality in the wetland”.

Adani on Tuesday released photos it said were taken a day before and showed “clear and blue water” in the wetland next to the port’s settlement pond.

The environment department launched an investigation after the release of satellite photos appearing to show a flow of polluted water into wetlands. A spokeswoman for the environment minister, Steven Miles, said officials had accessed the site and taken samples, with test results expected to take a week.

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The department has said Adani appeared to have met licence conditions in releasing water with up to 100mg per litre of suspended solids, but said it did not authorise environmental harm.

Aerial footage of Caley valley wetlands taken by Greenpeace before the cyclone showed a dark glint to some of the water. But the ACF’s chairman, Geoff Cousins, said the wetland had now “turned coal black”. “It looks trashed. It’s a tragic and shocking picture of what the future of the [Great Barrier Reef] coast looks like if we don’t stop digging up coal,” he said.

Jon Brodie, a water quality expert at the ARC centre of excellence for coral reef studies, said the fact the government was both the regulator and owner of a port that Adani had leased to operate for 99 years meant it was “vitally important to have a transparent, independent and urgent investigation of this environmental harm”.

“It is highly likely that there is environmental harm due to the loss of light for the plants and clogging of fish gills with fine coal dust,” Brodie said.

An Adani spokesman said the company on Tuesday confirmed that “water sampling, visual inspections, aerial imagery and continual monitoring, both prior to and following Cyclone Debbie, showed it has complied with stringent environmental regulations covering its Abbot Point operations”.

“Adani is committed to ensuring that the environment in which it operates is kept free from harm and its ability to comply with the strict environmental conditions at the site demonstrates its environmental management credentials,” he said.

Adani conducted further testing and analysis at the terminal with environmental officials on Tuesday.

A James Cook university mangroves expert, Norman Duke, has said aerial photos appeared to show “massive contamination” and environmental harm would “undoubtedly” occur. Duke said coal dust would sit in wetlands where some areas would be flushed out by seawater only once a year, changing tidal flows and making life impossible for some sensitive plants and animals. The coal dust was also potentially toxic and could suffocate plant life when waters dried up, he said.

Duke said he hoped the environment department would in the future make large vacant containment ponds compulsory for coal storage facilities.

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The reef campaign director for the AMCS, Imogen Zethoven, said the wetlands were a “microcosm” of risks to the reef if Adani’s Carmichael mine and port expansion went ahead.

“In nearly 20 years [the reef] has suffered four severe coral bleaching events, 10 severe cyclones and four massive flood events washing huge volumes of pollution into its waters. It can’t take much more,” she said.

The AMCS also responded to acting prime minister Barnaby Joyce’s “extremely misleading” suggestion that wetlands were artificial. On Tuesday Joyce dismissed concerns that the Carmichael mine could exacerbate environmental problems in the Caley valley, labelling it a “manmade wetland built for duck shooters”.

The AMCS said the Queensland government’s website showed 0.2% of the wetland had been modified and it had existed for thousands of years.