Coal terminal developer sheds light on environmental mitigation

April 30th, 2013

Peter Nolan

Posted

May 01, 2013 06:43:41

The developer of the Fitzroy coal terminal in central Queensland said yesterday it has been working to reduce the potential impacts of the project.

The development involves loading coal onto barges near Port Alma, south of Rockhampton, and transferring it into coal ships in deeper waters offshore.

In 2011, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority warned of potential “unacceptable risks” including disturbance to endangered turtles and snubfin dolphins from noise and lights.

Project manager Peter McTaggart says it has been working on solutions before lodging its environmental impact statement with the Federal Government later this year.

“With lighting, traditional lighting does shed a lot of unwanted light, peripheral to where you actually require your lighting to occur,” he said.

“We’re using high technology LED lighting, it’s very directional and directs lighting only to the work area that we require.

“These are the sorts of impact mitigations that we’re putting in place to ensure that we don’t have the potential impacts that were identified early in the process.”

Topics:
coal,
sea-transport,
regional-development,
regional,
community-development,
activism-and-lobbying,
port-alma-4699,
rockhampton-4700