The DERBY TIDAL POWER PROJECT:
An Examination of the 1997 Consultative Environmental Review for
Environmental Effects that might necessitate abandonment of the Project
Introduction
This examination of the Consultative Environmental Review (CER) of the proposed Derby Tidal Power Project in Doctors Creek, Kimberley, Australia, was undertaken at the request of private citizens from the Derby region. Its purpose was to identify areas of significant uncertainty in the information presented in the CER on potential environmental effects of the Project, and to assess the prospects that these might have for producing unacceptable environmental effects or of diminishing the expected benefits to be derived from the Project.
I and my colleagues from the Estuarine Centre have never visited northern Australia, and have no direct knowledge of the Kings Sound and Doctors Creek ecosystem. We have, however, been conducting research on estuaries — especially macrotidal ones — for the last 22 years, and much of that research has been aimed at understanding the ecology and ecosystem properties of coastal systems that have been investigated for their potential to support tidal power development.
The Acadia Centre for Estuarine Research (ACER) was established in 1985 to continue and co-ordinate multidisciplinary research that had begun a decade earlier on the macrotidal estuaries of the Bay of Fundy system. Since that time ACER has been the centre for research on tidal power effects in the Bay of Fundy, investigating ecosystem properties, sediment dynamics, biophysical relationships, and the effects of causeways on the biotic characteristics of the system. We have as a practical experiment the Annapolis Royal tidal power station: a 20 MW generator that has been operating on the Annapolis River since 1985, and have conducted a number of research projects related to fish passage, sediment dynamics, and shoreline stability in relation to that facility..
The multidisciplinary, ecosystem-based approach that we have taken has been and is being adopted by other research groups around the world. ACER personnel have been involved in planning such projects in the United Kingdom, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, and other estuarine systems in Canada.