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Lower Hunter River Health Monitoring Program Legacies of a century of industrial pollution and its impact on the current condition of the lower Hunter River estuary © 2017 State of NSW and Office of Environment and Heritage With the exception of photographs, the State of NSW and Office of Environment and Heritage are pleased to allow this material to be reproduced in whole or in part for educational and non-commercial use, provided the meaning is unchanged and its source, publisher and authorship are acknowledged. Specific permission is required for the reproduction of photographs. The Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has compiled this report in good faith, exercising all due care and attention. No representation is made about the accuracy, completeness or suitability of the information in this publication for any particular purpose. OEH shall not be liable for any damage which may occur to any person or organisation taking action or not on the basis of this publication. Readers should seek appropriate advice when applying the information to their specific needs. All content in this publication is owned by OEH and is protected by Crown Copyright, unless credited otherwise. It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) , subject to the exemptions contained in the licence. The legal code for the licence is available at Creative Commons . OEH asserts the right to be attributed as author of the original material in the following manner: © State of New South Wales and Office of Environment and Heritage 2017. This report was written and researched by Rebecca Swanson, Jaimie Potts and Peter Scanes. It was funded in part by an environmental service order issued to Orica Australia Pty Ltd by the NSW Land and Environment Court. Prepared for the NSW Environment Protection Authority. Citation: Swanson RL, Potts JD & Scanes PR 2017, Legacies of a century of industrial pollution and its impact on the current condition of the lower Hunter River estuary, Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney. Published by: Office of Environment and Heritage 59 Goulburn Street, Sydney NSW 2000 PO Box A290, Sydney South NSW 1232 Phone: +61 2 9995 5000 (switchboard) Phone: 131 555 (environment information and publications requests) Phone: 1300 361 967 (national parks, general environmental enquiries, and publications requests) Fax: +61 2 9995 5999 TTY users: phone 133 677, then ask for 131 555 Speak and listen users: phone 1300 555 727, then ask for 131 555 Email: [email protected] Website: www.environment.nsw.gov.au Report pollution and environmental incidents Environment Line: 131 555 (NSW only) or [email protected] See also www.environment.nsw.gov.au ISBN 978 1 76039 637 4 OEH 2017/0190 August 2017 Find out more about your environment at: www.environment.nsw.gov.au Contents Executive summary ........................................................................ vii 1 Introduction ............................................................................... 1 1.1 Purpose of this report ........................................................................ 1 1.2 Study area ......................................................................................... 1 1.3 Structure of review ............................................................................ 2 2 Pressures ................................................................................. 4 2.1 Industry – past and present ............................................................... 4 2.2 Water pollution in the Hunter River .................................................... 5 2.3 Agricultural land use .......................................................................... 5 2.4 Urbanisation ...................................................................................... 6 2.5 Mining and power industries .............................................................. 7 2.6 Legacies of heavy industry ................................................................ 7 2.7 Contaminated sites ............................................................................ 8 2.8 Current impacts of shipping and industry ........................................ 17 2.9 Regulation of water pollution ........................................................... 18 2.10 Urban inputs .................................................................................... 26 2.11 Pollutant export rates ...................................................................... 27 2.12 Inputs from the wider catchment ..................................................... 27 3 Condition ................................................................................ 28 3.1 NSW water quality objectives and national water quality guidelines 28 3.2 Historical condition measures ......................................................... 29 3.3 Recent condition measures ............................................................. 39 4 Conclusions and recommendations ........................................ 69 References .................................................................................... 71 iii iv Abbreviations used in this report ANZECC Australian and New Zealand Environment Conservation Council ARQ Australian runoff quality ASS acid sulfate soils BHP Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited BIA benzene impacted area BOD biochemical oxygen demand CCT Carrington Coal Terminal CMA catchment management authority CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CUTEP ‘clean-up to the extent practicable’ CVA Conservation Volunteers Australia DDE dichloro-diphenyl-dichloroethylene DDT dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane DIN dissolved inorganic nitrogen DPI NSW Department of Primary Industries EC electrical conductivity EIS environmental impact statement EPA NSW Environment Protection Authority EPL environment protection licence FBZ foreshore buffer zone HBOC Hunter Bird Observers Club HRRP Hunter River Remediation Project HRSTS Hunter River Salinity Trading Scheme HWC Hunter Water Corporation HWCA Hunter Wetlands Centre Australia ISQG interim sediment quality guidelines KIEF Kooragang Island Emplacement Facility LOR limit of reporting MER NSW Natural Resources Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Strategy MRL maximum residue limits NCC Newcastle City Council NCIG Newcastle Coal infrastructure Group NFA MRL National Food Authorities’ maximum residue limits + NH4 /NH3 ammonium/ammonia - - NOx nitrate (NO3 ) and nitrite (NO2 ) NPWS NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service v NTU nephelometric turbidity units NWC Newcastle Wetland Connections NOW NSW Office of Water OCC organochlorine compounds OEH Office of Environment and Heritage PAH polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons PCB polychlorinated biphenyls 3- PO4 phosphate PRP pollution reduction program PRZ primary remediation zone PSH phase-separated hydrocarbons PWCS Port Waratah Coal Services PWCS-CCT Port Waratah Coal Services Carrington Coal Terminal PWCS-KCT Port Waratah Coal Services Kooragang Coal Terminal RAP remediation action plan SOC State of the Catchments SOE State of the Environment TKN total kjeldahl nitrogen TN total nitrogen TOC total organic carbon TON total organic nitrogen TP total phosphorous TPH total petroleum hydrocarbons TSS total suspended solids TZ total zinc UNSW University of New South Wales VMP voluntary management proposal WRL UNSW Water Research Laboratory WWTW wastewater treatment works vi Lower Hunter River Health Monitoring Program – Literature and data review Executive summary In 2014 the NSW Land and Environment Court imposed penalties on Orica Australia Pty Ltd for a number of pollution incidents at their Kooragang and Botany facilities in 2010–11. The monetary penalty was paid to local and state government agencies to fund projects aimed at restoring and enhancing the environment for the benefit of affected neighbouring communities. Part of the Environmental Service Order was issued to the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) to implement the Lower Hunter River Health Monitoring Program which included: • a technical assessment of all environmental monitoring data to provide information about the past and current condition of the estuary (this document) • a water quality monitoring program to assess the current status of water quality in the estuary (Swanson et al. 2017a). Very little data had been collected since 2000, during which time land use and activities in the Port of Newcastle had changed considerably, and the population in the region has grown • a stormwater quality monitoring program in the lower estuary during or following rainfall between April and June 2015 to identify current sources of pollutants to the lower estuary (Swanson et al. 2017b). The relative contributions of industrial versus urbanised catchments to nutrient and sediment loads to the estuary is a current debate among stakeholders that requires investigation. There is also a real need from regulatory agencies for current water quality in the lower Hunter River estuary to be assessed, in order to guide future management and regulation of industries operating on the harbour. To complement the scope of the Lower Hunter River Health Monitoring Program, OEH undertook a preliminary ecological assessment in the lower to mid estuary in 2015–16 to assess whether ecological processes in the estuary were impaired as a result of decades of pollution (Swanson et al. 2017c). The main findings from the Lower Hunter River Health Monitoring Program and the OEH ecological

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