Lead contamination of Fremantle Port serves to highlight the failure of industry environmental self regulation.

Dr Nick Dunlop Science and Policy Coordinator at CCWA said, "Amongst all the current political sensitivity about lead contamination from the Geraldton and Fremantle ports there is a much broader issue, the failure of industry environmental self-regulation. Indeed there is the recurring theme from the various environmental debacles at Western Australian ports in recent years, including the 2003 Geraldton dredging program, and the Esperance lead contamination events of late 2006 and early 2007.

"Some argue that the Ports are ‘government trading enterprises' and as such are an example of the government regulating itself and that ‘private' ports may not have been cut the same regulatory slack. It was certainly true at Geraldton that the regulators used ambiguous Ministerial Conditions to avoid suspending a very costly, taxpayer-funded, dredging program. Unfortunately in this case the non-compliance obscured the incompetence, although the incident triggered a review of enforceability in ministerial conditions.

"Environmental consequences of our port operations are much more in the public gaze than those of other industries, such as the remote mining operations they service. The environmental problems at the ports are more readily exposed by the residents and provide a window into the probable outcomes of industry self regulation elsewhere, said Dr Dunlop.

"How can we best protect the public interest, environment and health from cases such as the Fremantle Port lead contamination with this dominance of ‘industry self-regulation'? A few starting points include:

• When engaged in assessment process do what you can to have appropriate, technically sound, measurable and legally enforceable conditions imposed
• Ensure that all monitoring conditions require that all reporting is publically available in as close to possible as ‘real time'
• Set up community networks and structures to review and assess monitoring results and advocate for timely regulatory or political action, and
• Where the capacity exists, set up community based ambient monitoring programs to verify the environmental outcomes of projects and of their regulation.

One example of how the community can respond to the problems of industry self regulation and contamination is The Albany Dredging Environment Network (ADEN) formed in response to another approved port dredging project in their area," concluded Dr Dunlop.