rantFUJAK

I've recently read about a proposed De-Salination plant for Point Lowly, primarily to supply water for the OneSteel Ironore processing plant. Having dived there a while ago, it's a very pristine area and a breeding ground for the Australian Giant Cuttlefish. The increased salinity from the plant may greatly affect the area.

Anyone know if Scuba divers Federation of SA are campaigning against this ?

Hi Ian,

I don't know the answer to your question, but I would say Desal plants are definitely going to be a lot more common in future in the southern states.

Brad,

There is considerable information about this on the net actually. The Whyalla Council supported the plant based on them receiving a potable water supply for the city from the plant. Now it seems that the de-sal plant will only produce non-potable water, so the council has withdrawn it's support for the project.
Very interesting and concerning times. The increase in localised salinity and the ingress of large volumes of nutrient rich seawater are the principal concerns.

No idea if SDF involved but news articles:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/22/2310352.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/22/2310352.htm)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/04/16/1898094.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/04/16/1898094.htm)

and
http://www.seadragonfoundation.org/SFI%20Articles/Desalination%20plant%20Port%20Bonython.htm (http://www.seadragonfoundation.org/SFI%20Articles/Desalination%20plant%20Port%20Bonython.htm)

Gents,

everytime we start the car up to go diving this has an adverse effect on the enviro, everytime we crank the compressor up ditto ...need I go on

we can't have our cake and eat it too!!!

PH,

Are you trying to now justify why you don't go diving ? That you would have to use your compressor which would emit Carbon into the atmosphere, and you won't drive to Mt Gambier for same reason ?

Some people care about the environment that they live in, and want to leave it better than found it. A De-sal plant has some large environment risks associated with it, particularly on the Ocean environment.

IT

Ian are you struggling this week?...my post had nothing to do with me diving!

We are all responsible for the errors done to the enviroment...the desal plants are to help with the droubt issue are they not caused by GH gases carbon omissions etc, right? unless we are all squeaky clean about having no negative effect on the enviroment then we should either change our ways or shut the 'F word' up.

As a diver we do have in some ways negative effects on the enviroment by simply what we have to do to go diving (and also hands up who pisses in Tank!!!!!!}(and taking a dump in caves) unfortunately there maybe some negatives in fixing the problem for the long term.

So now that you are getting all high and mighty about the enviroment, when I do resume my diving in the mount a shall expect to see you cycling down the western highway with a set of twin 15's on your back.

Ian you have this week to stop being a wanker, then next week we want you to be back to normal(well as much as you can be being GUE and all  ;D)

H

Harvs couldnt you help bring up tank again..

Third link in Craigs post (regarding salinity/discharge levels), if accurate, seems to indicate minimal impact on local environment.Trust us were from the government.

Karl are you dyslexic?....gee they require high IQ's at GUE headquaters


 ;D ;D

My father-in-law is chairman of the board for the Pt Stanvac desal plant. The amount of environmental studies they conduct is equivalent to all the other work.
Problem is, the bad stuff probably wont get reported.
On another note, when we have a particularly wet period, all that fresh water gets drained into the gulf too, from the whole plains area. Does that afftect salinity? Watch Brownhill creek or the torrens for a while, its a shit load of water.

JD

I'm pretty sure the plant which was going to supply Whyalla is the one planned by BHP to supply water to it's "Proposed" F...n huge expansion at Olympic Dam instead of them pulling more water from the Artesian Basin.

Hey Ian,
I'm not trying to make an argument, just stating  I think it is likely that desal plants will be common. We are getting one at Pt Stanvac, Perth has one and another one proposed, Sydney is getting one, there are a few small ones around supplying remote communities already.

Size of Gulf? Huge. amount of outflow? not that big.
King fish pens are causing damage
trawlers up and down the gulfs are stripping it all!
I 've been on Heron with a desal plant and the put out thier out flow near where turtles come in shore to lay eggs and hatchlings return, not a huge dent in the populations there, maybe not to your scale but you can extrapolate out some factors i'm sure.
we as divers by the way seem to be able to damage more with out care to our bouyancy! so I huess points to the CDAA and GUE there!

Brad,
I know I know, apologies if you thought that was my tone. Definitely not. Although Desal plants may become more common, they aren't a panacea to a problem. They require significant amounts of energy and do have environment effects that need to be considered. As someone who has personally witnessed the great diving around Point Lowly ( near the Santos plant ) I'm concerned about the effect of Desal on the localised area. Would a better option to be to have the Desal plant outlets out to see in Deep water ( similar to Sydney sewage outlets ? )
I know little can be achieved in a diving forum for this, though community awareness is often a great place to start. Too often the ocean is out of sight, out of mind.
Cheers
Ian

There is also another plant planned by Aquasol to be built near Pt Augusta.

http://www.solardesalination.com.au/

This is to be a solar powered plant.

I haven't been able to read all the posts on this ever expanding forum, but one concern which people have raised about the upper gulf proposals is that the tidal movement will not be sufficient to dispurse the brine when it is deposited back into the sea.

Sorry Ian for my reply I had not read further and after finding a few reports and the concerns raised are valid.
the dispersal methods are all quite involved but is there a place for the salt farm idea? we already have one up near Pt Adelaide. The western world has many chips perhaps this could be our reply?
http://www.ffc.org.au/FFC_files/desal/Einav,%20Kobi%20and%20Perry%202002-1.pdf (http://www.ffc.org.au/FFC_files/desal/Einav,%20Kobi%20and%20Perry%202002-1.pdf)