What Swash did
- Swash provided onsite dredging and environmental supervision services at the Port of Weipa and Amrun including:
- Supervision of daily dredging with trailing suction hopper dredgers, TSHD Brisbane (2,900 m3) and TSHD Oranje (16,000 m3)
- Supervision of daily surveying and bed-levelling activities
- Implementation and monitoring of real-time water quality monitoring and dashboard
- Weekly reporting to Technical Advisory & Consultative Committee (TACC)
- Ensuring environmental compliance and undertaking environmental audits of both TSHDs.
About the project
In 2019, North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP) undertook critical maintenance dredging at the Port of Weipa (and Amrun port) in response to unprecedented siltation within the south channel over the summer season.
This was due to four significant weather events, including tropical cyclones TC Owen, TC Penny, TC Trevor and a large monsoonal event.
The post wet-season survey indicated around 2.65 million cubic metres of sedimentation, resulting in a two-metre average loss of depth over about eight kilometres of the south channel. This impacted shipping in the order of 10,000 tonnes per ship short loading.
Due to the extraordinary level of siltation, two trailing suction hopper dredgers were required, the usual TSHD Brisbane (2,900 m3) and the much larger international TSHD Oranje (16,000 m3) over a period of six weeks.
Dredging volume
The Weipa and Amrun 2019 dredging project had a dredging volume of 2.9 million cubic metres.
