PROPOSED SALT WORKS FACILITY IN ASHBURTON DRAWS CRITICISM

BY CONRAD MACLEAN

Ningaloo Reef. Credit: Protect Ningaloo.

Environmental activists have criticised plans for a salt works facility in the Pilbara’s Ashburton area. 

The project is proposed by German Chemical Company K+S. 

Campaign group Protect Ningaloo CEO Paul Gamblin said the project would be constructed over nationally listed wetlands. 

“Those enormous salt pans could block the nutrient flows that give the Gulf so much of its productivity, the water that flows over the land and takes all the good stuff into the Gulf,” he said.

“They concentrate salt and very hypersaline water that can be toxic to mangroves and can also cause a significant risk to species.”

K+S Australia Managing Director Gerrit Goedecke said the project has been designed to allow the nutrient flows to reach the sea. 

“The project has been designed over time to not block those nutrition flows. Nutrient flows are basically rainfalls in the hinterlands going towards the ocean,” he said.

“The project is located between two drainage channels, so there is no blockage of nutrient flows.”