Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about my visit to the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, or CRC CARE, located at the University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes Campus. Mawson Lakes, for those of you who are listening who are not from Adelaide, is approximately 10 kilometres north of Adelaide.

I want to talk about CRC CARE because its work is not very well known—but it should be. There are many cooperative research centres around Australia and they range in activities from agriculture, forestry and fisheries through to manufacturing, mining and other general services. Cooperative research centres are very important in the context of our country maintaining its competitive scientific position in industry and public affairs.

CRC CARE exists due to the work of former Senator Jeannie Ferris. She was a passionate supporter of this CRC, and it was her initial interest in it that finally resulted in it being funded in 2005 by the Howard government. Sadly, Senator Ferris did not live to see the wonderful maturing of this scientific enclave to the world-class environmental remediation research centre that it is today.

The Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation, or CERAR, which has been around since 2002, helped develop CRC CARE. CERAR develops innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions to complex contamination problems by taking a multidisciplinary approach. It focuses on Australian research priorities and industry opportunities. There are over 80 staff, students and visiting domestic and international researchers based at the purpose-built, world-class laboratories at Mawson Lakes. It has international linkages with Germany, the USA, the UK, Singapore, Bangladesh and Italy.

CRC CARE brings together Australian universities, state and Commonwealth agencies and regulatory authorities, mining, petroleum and agricultural industries, venture capitalists, environmental consultants and suppliers to work collaboratively on vital contamination issues at sites in Australia and the broader region. These bodies stump up with their 'hard earned', as we call it, to partially fund this organisation—always the ultimate market test for an organisation's need and relevance in any society. It is headed up by a great South Australian, Professor Ravi Naidu. I would like to thank him for his continuing passion in this area and for taking time out to inform me of the work that he and his team are doing. Thanks, Ravi.

CRC CARE is providing cutting-edge technologies and knowledge in assessing, preventing and remediating contamination of soil, water and air as well as methods for assessing contamination risks in land, groundwater and air, managing and/or remediating contamination, developing safe options for land use and the reuse of wastes on land, and developing solutions that are acceptable to regulatory agencies and the public, and capacity building generally. Its research is centred on four programs: best practice policy; better measurement; minimising uncertainty in risk assessment; and cleaning up. This research is carried out by CRC researchers working in collaboration with postgraduate students. These postgraduate students are provided with a practical industry training program which enhances knowledge and encourages professional development in a range of areas. It is a high-performing centre and, at the end of its first funding term last financial year, it had successfully completed on average 93 per cent of its research milestones.

I toured their laboratory and research facilities and spoke with many of the highly motivated and diversely educated people there. I was able to chat with some of the students who are undertaking research and PhDs into various aspects of soil remediation. Their facilities contain some of the most sophisticated and, by implication, expensive pieces of research equipment in Australia. We saw evidence at the RAAF Edinburgh base of their innovation with water treatment facilities. CRC CARE have been making great advances in conjunction with the Department of Defence on a broad range of decontamination projects using innovative interdisciplinary solutions in their extensive landholding.

I especially note the effectiveness of what they call the AFFF, the aqueous film forming foams waste water remediation process installed within the base. The fire training activities that occur at Edinburgh generate very large volumes of AFFF contaminated waste water. This waste water contains toxic chemicals and there are a number of problems with its disposal.

The treatment plants at the base developed by the CRC CARE people have successfully treated over 770,000 litres of waste water and returned it for reuse. This particular project is one of many where researchers at the CRC CARE directly engage with the end user. Rather than achieving just the goals of the researcher, CRC CARE also works with industry and other stakeholders to ensure that there are practical and cost-effective outcomes that can be utilised by industry groups and the broader community.

CRC CARE is important for a number of reasons. Remediation is a big business worldwide, and it is estimated that between $US20 billion and US$40 billion is spent annually in this area. In Australia the cost of remediating known and potential sites is estimated at between $US3 billion and $US4 billion a year. Contamination has clearly been an expensive problem, while understanding and remedies have been sought. Australia has inherited contamination from past practices caused mainly by mineral processing, heavy manufacturing, and fertiliser and pesticide use. This has occurred in soils and in water at sites where, or close to where, these industries have operated. As blood tests confirm, the majority of people have probably been exposed to some degree of contamination at one time or another. We lay no blame and note that this problem was born out of innocence from a time past.

It is estimated that around the world there are five million to 10 million contaminated industrial sites. Closer to home, Asia alone is thought to have some three million to five million sites, while estimates for Australia range between 60,000 and 200,000 contaminated sites. Most are located in cities and surrounding urban areas. These sites include former factories and tanneries, fuel dumps and chemical stores, service stations, munitions plants, farm livestock dips, timber treatment plants, oil and chemical refineries, landfills and the sediments of rivers, estuaries and coastlines where waste has in the past been piped for disposal. They are expensive to remediate and there are a lot of them. So new approaches and technology are needed to help bring the cost of remediation down.

During the presentation by the team at CRC CARE a map of Melbourne showing the contaminated sites in the inner city was displayed. It was like a patchwork quilt—such was the extent of contamination across that city. I immediately considered the value of the land that is currently locked up as a result of being contaminated. If we can efficiently and cost-effectively remediate contaminated land, the potential value that we could unlock would be enormous. Multiply that across all of the capital cities and you are looking at billions of dollars worth of prime real estate.

We must recognise the opportunity that this provides, given that the work of CRC CARE is spiralling the cost of remediation down at a remarkable rate. Their work is actually ensuring that this undertaking is going to cost less. It is also an opportunity to cluster jobs, skills and expertise in South Australia. There will be opportunities to commercialise some of the processes and techniques that are developed. And, as I have outlined, the extent of international site contamination is such that the market for new products is significant.

I think Dr Bruce Kelley, Global Practice Leader Environment at Rio Tinto, best describes this organisation, and I leave you with his words:

CERAR increasingly offers a one stop shop in the site remediation world. CERAR's ability to provide world class science-based site remediation solutions is an essential component of effective mine closure. It is truly emerging as a global centre of excellence.