At first glance it seems a good deal. Lend Lease is developing a huge project at Barangaroo in Sydney and is offering to excavate 600,000 tonnes of soil and donate this - free of charge - to Port Kembla to be used in the reclaiming of foreshore for port expansion. Lend Lease is picking up the bill for moving it here by sea transport.
The only catch is that Barangaroo was once the site of the Sydney gas works and some of this soil is contaminated with lead, zinc, copper and a host of other potentially dangerous minerals.
If this offer goes ahead, it needs to be carefully considered with all aspects covered. Will contaminated soil used as fill in a port expansion leach into harbour waters and cause harm to the environment, or will it be safely contained under concrete decking when the expansion is complete ?
What treatment - and what costs will be involved - in ensuring that this fill is quarantined from leaching ? That is a question that needs answering by qualified scientists and the specification should take into account that such containment must be effective on a very long term basis.
It would be easy for this offer to be rejected on emotional grounds. The very thought of " contamination " raises the ire of many people and there have even been suggestions that if this goes ahead we may end up with nuclear waste being used as fill. Rumour and exaggeration can quickly create a scenario out of reach with reality.
Properly handled, this offer can deliver huge savings to both parties. Port Kembla is going to require fill to expand and it will cost a lot of money if it has to be sourced from a quarry at commercial rates. Lend Lease will need to pay disposal fees if it has to find a suitable site to accept what is dug out to allow the foundations of the Barangaroo development to proceed. This could be a win-win-win situation - if it is handled correctly !
What is needed now is the compilation of a group of people with the technical expertise to evaluate what is needed - and to come to terms with both the risks - and what action can be taken to ensure that this proceeds safely.
Unfortunately, the more logical outcome is hysteria - and the intrusion of politics interfering in the decision making process !
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