EDITHVALE AND BONBEACH LEVEL CROSSING REMOVAL PROJECTS ENVIRONMENT EFFECTS STATEMENT Technical Report B Ecological Impact Assessment: Wetlands and Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems LXRA-LX31-00-PA-EES-0006 Revision:0 February 2018 Document Control Release Revision Date Released Release Status Comment 0 22/02/2018 ISSUED FOR USE QA Sign Off ON FILE ON FILE Package Lead Project Manager iii | LXRA-LX31-00-PA-EES-0006 Revision 0 | Ecological Impact Assessment: Wetlands and Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Table of Contents Executive summary ................................................................................................................................................viii Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................................................... xi Glossary ................................................................................................................................................................ xiv 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Purpose .............................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Why understanding Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems important is for the projects .................... 1 1.3 Project description.............................................................................................................................. 2 1.4 Project area ........................................................................................................................................ 4 2. Scoping requirements ................................................................................................................................. 10 2.1 EES objectives ................................................................................................................................. 10 2.2 EES scoping requirements ............................................................................................................... 10 3. Legislation, policy and guidelines ................................................................................................................ 14 4. Methods ...................................................................................................................................................... 17 4.1 Existing ecological conditions assessment ...................................................................................... 18 4.2 Likely presence of threatened and/or migratory species .................................................................. 20 4.3 Impact assessment .......................................................................................................................... 21 4.4 Risk assessment .............................................................................................................................. 36 4.5 Environmental Performance Requirements ..................................................................................... 36 4.6 Independent peer review .................................................................................................................. 37 4.7 Linkage to other technical reports .................................................................................................... 37 5. Existing conditions ....................................................................................................................................... 38 5.1 GDEs in the study area .................................................................................................................... 38 5.2 High value GDEs.............................................................................................................................. 43 5.3 Edithvale Wetland (part of the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands) ........................................................... 43 5.4 Wannarkladdin Wetlands ............................................................................................................... 105 5.5 Other GDEs ................................................................................................................................... 112 5.6 Threatened and/or migratory species............................................................................................. 127 5.7 Threatening processes ................................................................................................................... 127 6. Risk assessment ....................................................................................................................................... 128 7. Impact assessment ................................................................................................................................... 134 7.1 Edithvale ........................................................................................................................................ 134 7.2 Bonbeach ....................................................................................................................................... 150 8. Environmental performance requirements ................................................................................................ 157 9. Matters of National Environmental Significance ........................................................................................ 160 9.1 Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 160 9.2 Significant impact assessment ....................................................................................................... 163 10. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................ 166 11. References ................................................................................................................................................ 168 LXRA-LX31-00-PA-EES-0006 Revision 0 | Ecological Impact Assessment: Wetlands and Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems | iv Table Index Table 1 Scoping requirements for GDE impact assessment ......................................................................... 10 Table 2 Primary legislation and associated information ................................................................................ 14 Table 3 Bathymetric survey methods applied in each wetland cell ............................................................... 24 Table 4 RL for bathymetric survey ................................................................................................................ 25 Table 5 Macroinvertebrate and fish survey and water quality sampling in each wetland cell ........................ 27 Table 6 Fish survey techniques .................................................................................................................... 28 Table 7 GDEs within the project area ........................................................................................................... 38 Table 8 Aquifer systems ............................................................................................................................... 82 Table 9 In situ water quality sampling results July 2017 ............................................................................... 82 Table 10 Water quality sampling summary for salinity 2009-2015 (from Ecology Australia 2016) compared with in situ 2017 results ................................................................................................... 83 Table 11 Summary of Ramsar criteria met by Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands since listing in 2001 ................... 84 Table 12 Summary of critical CPS of Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands ................................................................. 89 Table 13 Summary of assessment against Limits of Acceptable Change for the Edithvale-Seaford Wetlands Ramsar Site ..................................................................................................................... 92 Table 14 Dominant aquatic plants - salinity tolerance ..................................................................................... 96 Table 15 Dominant macroinvertebrate taxa - salinity tolerance ...................................................................... 98 Table 16 Summary of likely outcome of climate change for components of the Edithvale Wetland (from Jacobs 2016) ........................................................................................................................ 100 Table 17 Summary of BirdLife Australia observations of significant birds at Wannarkladdin Wetland .......... 108 Table 18 Risks to wetlands and other GDEs ................................................................................................ 129 Table 19 Edithvale and Bonbeach environmental performance requirements .............................................. 157 Table 20 Summary of other potential mechanisms of impact ....................................................................... 165 Figure Index Figure 1 Edithvale project area ........................................................................................................................ 6 Figure 2 Bonbeach project area ......................................................................................................................