Submission on the Environmental Impact of Badgerys Creek Airport
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Submission on the environmental impact of Badgerys Creek airport. Dr Anthony Green, Visiting Principal Research Fellow, Microsimulation Risk Group, University of Wollongong 17/12/15 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Federal and New South Wales State Government have released a preliminary Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the operation of a new double runway class 1 airport by 2060. This follows a report in 2012 on the joint Study on Aviation Capacity in the Sydney Region and publication of preliminary plans for the new airport operation in 2014 together with the preliminary EIS for the proposed Airport. This reports concentrates on the decision that an airport is actually needed within the Sydney Basin and the risks associated with siting this airport at Badgerys Creek which have not been adequately assessed within those documents. The forecasts on aircraft flights were based on unrestrained projections. There is no interaction considered with other systems that would limit these forecasts. As a result all passenger numbers, aircraft movements and employment figures are over stated. Furthermore the loss to the economy from not building Badgerys Creek airport are not as great as stated and the cost benefit in building the airport is questionable. The unreliability of forecasts is demonstrated in the forecast for 2014 from 2010 which is 10% higher than the number of aircraft movements that actually occurred in 2014. KSA already has an additional 10% capacity compared to the forecasts. The document also demonstrates that there was no cost benefit comparison with alternative forms of transport or with integrated transport systems. Since 42% of aircraft movements in 2014, were to Brisbane, Canberra, Coolangatta or Melbourne a cost benefit comparison of benefits and risks should have been undertaken involving integrated transport. While the paper did a cursory consideration of a High Speed rail link with a maximum speed of 320km/hr along the East Coast of Australia, it then dismissed it as being a different market rather than a full cost benefit comparison. It did not consider using an Ultrahigh Speed train system that has a maximum speed of more than 400km/hr. The faster train system will attract more passengers to make the switch from aircraft to train travel than the slower speeds. Furthermore the published costs of $B70 include the cost of rolling stock. Plans for Badgerys Creek cost benefit do not include the cost of aircraft. Thus any conclusions they draw between the two modes of transport are not valid. A comparison of four scenarios for growth that includes Ultrahigh Speed rail show that the need for a new airport is not established until 2040 at the earliest (scenario 4) These four scenarios are the 2010 projection in the study, the 2014 actual figures projected at the same rate of increase as the study, the transfer of all East Coast passengers to rail and the transfer of 50% of East Coast travellers to rail. This latter scenario is likely to be conservative as experience in ultrafast rail internationally would suggest the take up is in the order of 60-70% based on rail speeds of 320km/hr and will increase to between 70-80% if the rail speed is increased to 400km/hr and would push out a need for an second airport to 2047. The original study, however, did not take account of the uncertainties in sea level rise from climate change. CSIRO have estimated that the change could be as high as 1m by 2100, while scientists who study the collapse of the ice fields in Greenland and Antarctica give a range from 0.8 to 7m in the same timeframe. By 2040 with an Ultrahigh speed rail serving the East Coast, the uncertainties associated with sea level rise which will impact on the operation of KSA will have been resolved. A 2 more informed decision of siting a new airport can be taken that takes account of any population movement expected sea level rise over a lifetime design period of 100 years. There is considerable benefit for Australia and NSW for fast tracking the building of an ultrafast rail line from Sydney to Brisbane and Melbourne that were not considered in the joint Study on Aviation Capacity in the Sydney Region. These benefits can be enhanced by parallel development of solar power to supply the energy for the trains and ultrafast Internet optical fibre along the rail corridor to allow job creation in the cities along the routes. The travel times between centres will be similar or less than current air travel times and the experience in Europe with such services show that more work can be accomplished and it is more comfortable while being of similar cost to air travel. A significant proportion of fast freight can be integrated into this rail network. A significant proportion of air freight is for the domestic market and destined for the major cities. All of this can be carried by Ultrahigh Speed train as the capacity per flight is limited and this type of containment can easily designed into the rail system. The building of the train track requires specialised steel products for the track and the catenary wires. This could revitalise steel making in Western Sydney through local firms using Australian Iron ore or recycled product. (It does not have to go to China and back). This strategy also reduces the footprint of pollution emission and produces job opportunities in Western Sydney. It can kick start a solar power industry in Australia using all Australian minerals and Australian expertise in this area. Four rows of solar panels is probably the maximum number of panels that would easily fit along the rail easement and would supply power back to the grid equivalent to half of Mount Piper Coal Fired power Station assuming 90 trains operate. The development of such a solar power industry in this country has the benefit of moving to a low carbon economy and has the potential for high exports while maintaining high employment. Centres such as Goulburn, Albury Wodonga, and Queanbeyan would become viable growth centres relieving some of the pressure on Sydney and Melbourne. Parallel development of ultrafast Optical fibre links can build computer based industries in these growth centres. In conclusion the need for building of a second Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek has not been established and is not an option if NSW is to properly move to a low carbon based economy which is resilient and sustainable. It should be noted that the economics of the second airport proposal do not take account of CO2 production which is considered a pollutant and is not costed into any market economic model. This lack of basic accounting principles leaves the public to pick up the cost of damage rather than the investors and corporations who create the damage. The monies set aside by government or by private investors would be better spent at less risk in building ultrafast rail and solar power technology. This provides at least three different income streams which will pay for itself with higher returns on investment than an Airport. The EIS purported to undertake a risk assessment of building the airport at Badgers Creek. There were, however, serious deficiencies in the method chosen that does not align with world’s best practice. 3 An airport is a major hazard installation in the same way as oil refineries or large Dangerous Goods stores. Aircraft are flying bombs particularly when fully loaded with fuel, and can impact on society in a variety of different ways, that lead to economic loss, death and injury and loss to society and the environment. As such there is a requirement that the benefits to the community outweigh the risks involved in the development of the airfield and this requires a risk framework that is commensurate with ISO35000; the international risk standard. There are a number of major deficiencies in the scope of this report that has resulted in an unreliable estimate of risk and impact on the major population centres of Western Sydney. Generally the risk in the EIS is only considered as a health and safety risk not as an economic risk or loss of social and natural environments. There is no evidence in any of the planning or EIS documents that the full spectrum of risks have received proper consideration. There is also a failure to ensure this process includes alternative sites and scenarios where High Speed rail is part of the mix of opportunities. Reliance on previous studies for some of the impacts that are possible is not appropriate because the class of aircraft, their maximum thrust, cargoes and fuel loads are different from twenty years ago. There is also a failure to use the design capacity as the basis for the assessment of risk and there is little assessment of the interaction between the different phases of flight and the local environment which can lead to significant loss of life and utility in Western Sydney. In particular any loss arising from human behaviour is excluded from the study. These include deliberate acts such as terrorism, pilot suicide or accidental behaviours involving the interactions between Air Traffic Control, the designated flight paths and individual aircraft that can all lead to aircraft crashes. Consequently there is no discussion of the impact from such events. A technical risk assessment for a second airport has to show that there is a net benefit to the community not the operators by demonstrating there is a reduction in risk to the community from the new airport together with other scenarios involving Ultrahigh Speed rail compared to continued operation at KSA.