Presentation to Melbourne Emergence Meetup December 2017 adding detail to original presentation made in February. Slide text served as prompts to deeper discussion. Two slides added at end for context that wasn't needed for live audience.

1. Tony Smith
Melbourne Emergence Meetup
14 December 2017
Nepean Bay Bar Update

2. Priorities this evening?
• Preparations Pretending to be Policies and Politics
• Pristine Port Phillip Mythology and Bromance
• Precarious State of Pretentious Freight State
• Projections and Uncertainties of Sea Level Rise
• Providing Capacity to and beyond Drysdale and Baxter
• Practicalities from Arden-Macaulay to Westernport

3. Contacts with DELWP point to studies being done in Geelong

4. Failure of policy and politics to comprehend
likely trajectory of sea level rise
Lesson from Narooma:
Erosion and Deposition
processes do not respect
human-defined shorelines

5. • Submitted SlideShare link to our February presentation with
notes to Draft Port Phillip Bay Environmental Management
Plan 2017-2027 process and received encouraging response
confirming Dan Ierodiaconou’s involvement
• Late April dropped in at Moolap Coastal Strategic Framework
session which added introduction to OurCoast Bellarine-Corio
Bay process that references considerable technical work
including Neville Rosengren and Great Sands
• Found another interested DELWP person at Transport Camp
in October and copied them the information
• As yet nobody is chasing us for more, seeming to be acting as
though their job is to apply romantically coloured bandaids

6. • The 0.8 metres by 2100 furphy refuses to die in politically
mandated assumptions, even when it is admitted that it was
from another millennium and should be treated as a minimum
• More interesting is 0.2 metres by 2040, maybe not enough to
scare the cats unless they see where it must go from there
• No end of details of both historic rates and current risk areas
continue to be identified by those not buying denialist line
• The deep problem that political determinations can’t cope with
is that no matter what the date and what the depth, sea level
will still be rising and most likely still accelerating because of
components that are already locked into the system, so there is
no point planing for just those mandated levels

7. Need to challenge romantic delusion about
pristine Port Phillip, natural fixations
Variety of bird species exploit
permanent high flow litter
trap on Moonee Ponds Creek
below Racecourse Road

8. • Port Phillip refilled only 1,000 years ago and so is still young
in ecological terms and anything but a pristine environment
• Viewed in the light of historic records of the marine invasion
of Zuiderzee and charts from early British explorers, shallow
erosion of Nepean Bay Bar has likely been a gradual process
• Since the unauthorised invasion by Post Phillip Association
from Tasmania in 1835, the bay floor has been trashed 3 ways
• dredging oyster and mussel reefs to make lime for concrete
• dredging shipping channels
• dredging for scallops
• together leaving a trashed bottom unseen by surface admirers

9. • Similarly, the most committed of environmentalists can form
attachments to their images of pristine conditions somehow
immune from the passage of time
• The reality is that most life forms adapt to change so long as
there continues to be somewhere and somehow for them to,
but on a different timetable to news, politics and profit reports
• Werribee Sewage Treatment Farm is the state’s most
significant bird site. Trin Warren Tam-boore wetland tops
species counts. Both are in areas which have historically been
bird habitat, but both are much modified, yet still found
• Many species seem comfortable in areas that offend human
aesthetics, maybe because humans mostly keep away

10. Increasing evidence it was and is not smart to
aspire to be THE Freight State
Circuitous Webb Dock freight
line adjacent Lorimer Street,
opened 1986, ceased
operation 1992, closed 1996

11. • The 2008 round of channel deepening remains contested by
those who opposed it. Is it that, the to date minor sea level rise
or a combination that is accelerating bayside erosion?
• Containers are transported “around the equator” on very deep
draft vessels then transferred, in Australia’s case, in Singapore
to more moderate draft vessels which typically visit all five
mainland capitals’ ports, so the depths have needed to be
consistent between the five with no incentive to go deeper
• Victoria remains a battleground between standard gauge and
broad gauge rail with ports often using dual gauge at the end
• Current locations of logistics hubs, container storage and ports
are mostly poor candidates for freight rail separation

12. • It may not be very wise to make projections extrapolating
business/growth as usual deep into the future
• As even WWII fades from living memory it may be useful to
reflect on the recency of many underpinnings of modern life
• While blatant vested interests obstruct recognition of resource
constraints and unintended consequences of technologies,
“finite planet” is more than a truism
• Concurrent knowledge explosion shows interconnectedness of
living systems, encouraging attempts at moderation
• Before the globalised world starts to spiral out of control,
should Australia reduce its dependence and become an ark?

13. Continuing updates to projections for climate
change and sea level, reality at high end
Last day of November heat
draws late afternoon crowd
to Port Noarlunga Jetty

14. • Despite the noise of the anti-science crowd on their scientific
devices and the desperation of declining media to boost any
hint of controversy, climate science still tackles hard questions
• Taking the planetary temperature is not like taking the local
temperature, but we are identifying variations in circulation
patterns which have predictable impacts on best estimates
• If we could account for all sinks and sources, any composite
measure of global thermal energy would be rising year on year
• Challenge to find measure to quickly detect going off curve
• Various feedback loops have triggered or are threatening to,
but as yet we are mostly seeing signs, not inescapable signals

15. • Scientists are ever more accurately identifying signals from
geological records of sea level and associated causal factors
• Other scientists are identifying destabilisation risks for all
three major ice sheets: Greenland, East and West Antarctica
• Never enough scientists are studying the interacting roles of
fresh water, soils, forests, agriculture, urbanisation, life itself
• In the process they are finding that aridity from Australia to
the Sahara may follow early blossomings of human agriculture
• Measures of recent sea level rise are still too small and multi
factorial to give a lot of confidence as to where we are on the
curve, but once we do, we know turning back won’t get easier

16. Challenges for transport network evolution to
service barrier from both ends
Six tracks at Geelong Station
are pointed into single track
1876 tunnel too low to take
full height container freight

17. GeelongEasternBypass
Indicative Nepean Bay Bar ApproachFormer Drysdale Queenscliff Railway
Skyrail Breakwater-Drysdale avoids level
crossings and Moolap Lowland inundation
Geelong Eastern Bypass via Point Henry will
distribute Melbourne metropolitan traffic
Most of route Drysdale-St Leonards is above
20 metre contour so should be less hurried
Identifying route across Nepean Bay Bar
ahead of significant sea level rise is critical
Construction of foundations to most of that
route may reduce tides and erosion in north
Locks should enable operation of Webb and
Swanston Docks while project completed

18. Mornington Peninsula Freeway ReservationDundasStreet
CanteburyJettyRoad
Bay South Floating Port
Drawing acceptable line in the sand hills will
be a big challenge for local community
Need an impervious wall as foundation for at
least 20 metre elevated transport routes
Can’t try to be prescriptive at this stage, just
set out constraints and essential components
Route from beyond Boneo Road to Baxter has
been thoroughly canvassed by Rob Whitehill
His Peninsula Rail Plan is primarily passenger
so East-West-Port freight needs to be added
Assume Baxter-Dandenong and more will be
needed to distribute metropolitan traffic

19. Sorrento
• Zone: 4
• Platforms: 2
• Staff level: Staffed full-time
• Melway Ref: 156 K7
Although it was once thought impossible to run rail
beyond Rye station, the recent controversy over the Skyrail
project between Caulfield and Dandenong stations has
revealed the possibility of running elevated rail beyond Rye,
to Sorrento. The line would run along the reserve for the
Mornington Peninsula Freeway extension, and then alongside
Melbourne Road, elevated for its entire length except for parts
of the freeway extension reserve where the line would run
along the ground, and when it crosses Melbourne Road
opposite Tarakan Street, where it would go under the road in
order to maintain level track.
Sorrento station itself would be located above Ocean
Beach Road, just a short walk away from existing carparks,
which would be connected to the station by a ramp.
19 October 7, 2016

20. Closer look at particularly vulnerable locations
from Macaulay to Westernport
Accessible sea level monitoring
where Moonee Ponds Creek
flows into tidal Railway Canal
outside Macaulay Station

21. Areas within Land Subject to Inundation
Overlay are prime development targets
Focus remains on floods coming downstream
but adjacent tidal streams sea level the issue
Concerned about vulnerability of major
infrastructure proposed for Arden-Macaulay,
City of Melbourne enlisted Melbourne Water
Expert witness to West Gate Tunnel Inquiry
and Assessment Committee showed much
wider vulnerability across the flood plains
Healthy Waterways Catchment Collaborations
for Moonee Ponds Creek and Maribyrnong
West Melbourne Lagoon abused by industry
but can strike back hard with sea level rise

22. Wider closure of Westernport not practical
but large area at risk from north arm alone
Significant tidal channel wraps northwest
corner of French Island with smaller one
between northeast corner and mainland
If these channels are closed an impervious
foundation could link highlands via Island
Try to preserve Island’s ecological isolation
Port Phillip and Westernport catchments are
separated with a low point above 25 metres
elevation near Pound Road, Clyde North
Establishing impervious foundations that can
be raised to 20 metre elevation offers medium
term confidence in greater Melbourne region

23. • Making progress will require slaughtering sacred cows
• Marine and Coastal Act submission October 2016
• Email today re 2nd reading yesterday; but not others
• Mud Islands tour operator shut up shop December 9
• Adding 2 slides used in Kororoit Institute presentation
re West Gate Tunnel Environmental Effects Statement
Questions?

24. Holdgate et al 2011

25. St. Leonards
East Sorrento