The Gippsland Lakes debacle

The previous side-cast dredger maintained the entrance at 2.5 metres, and the new permit allowed for a total depth of 4.5 metres. Gippsland Ports continued to dredge the entrance for the next two years without a permit, and were reported to the federal government by the Victorian EDO.

A hurried and flawed application resulted in Gippsland Ports then being issued with a 10-year dredging permit to dredge to 3.5 metres, the requested navigable depth required, plus an extra two metres allowance for slump and accretion, making an actual dredging depth of 5.5 metres.

Gippsland Ports have recently taken delivery of a hopper dredger that is stationed at Lakes Entrance. The two-metre allowance for slump has not been removed from their dredging permit, and they continue to maintain the entrance at two metres deeper than that required for navigation.

As a direct result, the entrance cross-sectional area has doubled, and the tidal speed through the entrance has increased from three knots to 7.4 knots. The Tidal Prism, the amount of ocean water entering the Lakes each tide, has massively increased, as has the tidal range of ocean water entering the Lakes, to the extent that surface water is now classified as 'highly saline' (i.e. it can kill fresh-water plants).

The salt-water wedge has intruded up the lake chain as far as the Port of Sale (a distance of over 100 km), endangering the ecologically significant Heart, Dowd and Clydebank Morass.

The ecological impacts on the Lakes are stark:

• Marine species invasion. Shore Crab; sharks; stingray; squid; starfish; marine oysters etc.
• Loss of shoreline vegetation and subsequent erosion.
• Loss of bird habitat and food chain.
• Loss of black bream recruitment.

Ross has recently written to the Victorian Premier advising that Australia is in breach of the Ramsar Agreement and its Treaties with China, Japan and South Korea to protect the habitat of migratory wading birds. He has requested:

• An immediate audit of the Gippsland Lakes Ecological Function.That the entrance to the Lakes be maintained no deeper than that required for navigation, and not the current 5.5 metres.
• Allocate funding to the Gippsland Environment Group to model and design a submerged salinity barrier for McLennan Strait to save Lake Wellington from salt intrusion.
• That a Parliamentary Inquiry into the mismanagement of the Gippsland Lakes be implemented.

There seems no logical reason why the entrance is being maintained so deep, and why the state government will not monitor the adverse impacts of the dredging on the Lakes ecology. But slowly, ever so slowly, it has dawned on Ross that the lakes are being managed to a marine condition. He became aware that:

• Melbourne is predicted to run short of water by 2030; and has in place plans to dam and divert the Aberfeldy, MacAlister, Mitchell and West Tanjil rivers back to Melbourne.
• Gippsland is now acknowledged as the 'food hub' of Victoria, and the expansion of this industry is requiring more water and a guaranteed supply.

To address these demands it appears that the state government is managing the lakes into a highly-saline marine condition. To justify Melbourne's increased harvesting of the Lakes' feeder streams, it will be argued that fresh water flowing into saline Gippsland Lakes is going to waste and should be harvested instead.

Ross is now heading for 81 years, and his wife Gayle (of 58 years) reckons that if he wasn't fighting environmental vandals he would be dead by now!