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Woodside Gas Subsea Pipeline – Nearshore Component

About the Project

In December 2018, Woodside Gas proposed to build a subsea pipeline to the Scarborough gas field located 380 km west-north-west of the Burrup Peninsula. They planned the nearshore component of the pipeline to run through Dampier Archipelago and had the potential to impact the endangered Loggerhead Turtle, the endangered Leatherback Turtle, the vulnerable Green Turtle, the vulnerable Hawksbill Turtle and the vulnerable Humpback Whale.

 

Our Work

January 2019 – We made a submission to the Commonwealth Department of Environment and Energy that addressed potential impacts to aquatic threatened species, including injury from noise impacts and vessel strikes.

 

Results

August 2019 – The Department of Environment and Energy approved the project with conditions to minimise impacts to threatened species.

Conditions imposed on Woodside Gas included:

  • A marine fauna observer to monitor for whales or marine mammals within a 2000 m radius and marine turtles within 500 m radius of the piling location 30 minutes before piling commences,
  • Piling only to begin if a marine fauna observer has not observed a whale within 1300 m, other marine mammals within 1000 m or marine turtles within 100 m of the piling location.
  • Soft start-up procedures for all piling activities for the first 30 minutes of piling.
  • Piling to stop if they observed a whale within 1300 m, other marine mammals within 1000 m or a marine turtle within 100 m of the piling location.
  • Piling only to be conducted during daylight hours.
  • Piling to be prohibited in the months of August to March inclusive.
  • Turtle deflective devices to be used on the drag heads of dredges.
  • Between 1 August and 31 October, a mandatory vessel speed limit of 6 knots and marine fauna observers to be present on a high observation platform on the vessel using binoculars by day and thermal imaging equipment at night or during low visibility;
  • At all times, a mandatory vessel speed limit of 6 knots within 300 m of a whale and a prohibition on vessel approaches closer than 100 m from a whale. Within these distances, if a whale shows any sign of being disturbed, mandatory withdrawal of vessels.