The "Save our Gulf Coalition" is new community group, formed to stop the desalination plant from being constructed at Port Stanvac. The group feels that the desalination plant is unnecessary and the same result could be achieved with the recycling of Adelaide’s storm and waste water with added advantage of considerable environmental benefits in terms of less pollution and significantly less energy and therefore less greenhouse gas emissions.
“The fact that Adelaide is on water restrictions and currently pumping from the River Murray when 400 million litres of valuable stormwater is wasted from this single drain (Edwards Street on Brighton Beach) alone, is a disgrace.” Peter Laffan Chairman of the Save our Gulf Coalition said “In addition to wasting this water - large amounts of sediment that is never meant to get into the Gulf - is polluting the marine environment, and combined with litter, is causing the loss of valuable seagrasses and as a result erosion of beach sand.”
“The desalination plant will discharge the equivalent of nearly 2 million tonnes per year of salt back into the Gulf and has the potential to be an environmental disaster.” He continued, “There is significant concern among scientists that the brine solution will impact on sea life especially eggs and the young of certain species, including squid that breed in surrounding waters. The massive intake of water needed by the plant which contains algae and other organisms also reduces the available food supply for marine organisms in the Gulf.”
“The unique characteristics of St Vincent’s Gulf mean that water does not move or circulate easily, and it has been identified in the Government’s own reports such as the Adelaide Coastal Waters Study, that the discharged brine is likely to move northward closer to metropolitan beaches and be trapped in a narrow coastal band.”
These are the same issues that concern us here in the upper Spencer Gulf with the proposed desalination plant at Point Lowly
"Murky Waters of Adelaide's Coast"
Semaphore SLSC Point Malcolm Reserve. Semaphore Park, off Military Rd
Sunday 30th August 2009
Adelaide group forms to save Gulf
Details here Contact: Ian Kirkegaard by E-mail
Lights back on
The Whyalla Council has turn the Point Lowly Lighthouse light back on with a dimmer yellow light