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St Kilda salt fields brine spill

Environmental disasters in AustraliaMangroves

The St Kilda saltfields brine spill is an ongoing environmental disaster occurring in St Kilda, South Australia. Former salt production ponds are leaking brine into adjacent wetlands causing death and distress to mangroves, the salt marsh and intertidal ecological communities of Barker Inlet.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article St Kilda salt fields brine spill (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

St Kilda salt fields brine spill
Mangrove Street, Adelaide

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N -34.745 ° E 138.54 °
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Mangrove Street

Mangrove Street
5110 Adelaide
South Australia, Australia
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Barker Inlet – St Kilda Aquatic Reserve

Barker Inlet – St Kilda Aquatic Reserve is a marine protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located in waters adjoining the east coast of Gulf St Vincent in Barker Inlet about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) north of the state capital of Adelaide.The aquatic reserve covers the extent of the Barker Inlet located to the south of the St Kilda boat channel as well as two natural channels, the Angas Inlet and the east part of the North Arm, and land subject to tidal inundation on the east side of Torrens Island, all sides of Garden Island and in the suburbs of Gillman, Dry Creek, Bolivar and St Kilda (from west to east). It is bounded to its immediate north by the St Kilda – Chapman Creek Aquatic Reserve.It was declared on 23 August 1973 for the purpose of “conservation of mangrove seagrass communities and for the protection of nursery areas for several important commercial and recreational species, including the western king prawn, King George whiting, yellowfin whiting and blue swimmer crabs for fisheries management.” The following activities are permitted - boating, the removal of fish by rod and line or handline and the collecting of blood worms for bait by use of a hand net.It shares territory with the following protected and proposed protected areas - the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary, the Adelaide International Bird Sanctuary and the Torrens Island Conservation Park.The aquatic reserve is classified as an IUCN Category VI protected area.

Barker Inlet
Barker Inlet

The Barker Inlet is a tidal inlet of the Gulf St Vincent in Adelaide, South Australia, named after Captain Collet Barker who first sighted it in 1831. It contains one of the southernmost mangrove forests in the world, a dolphin sanctuary, seagrass meadows and is an important fish and shellfish breeding ground. The inlet separates Torrens Island and Garden Island from the mainland to the east, and is characterised by a network of tidal creeks, artificially deepened channels, and wide mudflats. The extensive belt of mangroves are bordered by samphire saltmarsh flats and low-lying sand dunes. There are two boardwalks (at Garden Island and St Kilda), and ships graveyards in Broad Creek, Angas Inlet and the North Arm (which is just south of North Arm Creek). The Eastern Passage runs between Garden Island and the mainland, narrowing to form Angas Channel north of North Arm Creek. The inlet has been adversely impacted since the settlement of South Australia, with stormwater and raw sewage discharge, fishing, landfill rubbish dumping, power generation and other activities adversely affecting its flora and fauna. Much of this has changed with the landfill dump on adjacent Garden Island being closed in 2000 and remediation work begun. Some stormwater is now being filtered through wetlands before discharge and the inlet has been declared a reserve for the preservation of dolphins, fish, crabs and aquatic plants. The mangroves and waterways are still affected by the adjacent former salt crystallization pans (closed in 2014), hot wastewater discharge from Torrens Island power station, heavy metal contamination from stormwater and treated sewage, and disturbances from boat traffic.

Torrens Island Conservation Park

Torrens Island Conservation Park (formerly Torrens Island National Park Reserve and Torrens Island Wild-life Reserve) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located on Torrens Island in the Adelaide metropolitan area about 17 kilometres (11 miles) north-northwest of the state capital of Adelaide and about 3.9 kilometres (2.4 miles) north-northeast of Port Adelaide.The conservation park consists of land in Allotments 300 and 304 in Deposited Plan 90964, and sections 464 and 467 in the cadastral unit of the Hundred of Port Adelaide. This consists of all of Torrens Island down to low water with exception to the most of land associated with the former quarantine station and the land associated with the Quarantine and Torrens Island Power Stations, and some land exposed at low water at the eastern end of Garden Island.On 28 November 1963, land in section 467 was proclaimed as a "wild-life reserve" under the National Park and Wild Life Reserves Act 1891. On 9 November 1967, it was proclaimed as the Torrens Island National Park Reserve under the National Parks Act 1966 in respect to section 467 in the Hundred of Port Adelaide. On 27 April 1972, it was reconstituted as Torrens Island Conservation Park upon the proclamation of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. On 23 January 2014, the following land in the Hundred of Port Adelaide was added to the conservation park all subject to the preservation of rights under the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000 for the "construction or operation of a transmission pipeline" - Allotments 300 and 304 in Deposited Plan 90964, and Section 464. As of 2016, it covered an area of 6.35 square kilometres (2.45 sq mi). In 1980, the conservation park was described as follows:Situated at the northern end of Torrens Island, which lies near the mouth of the Port River, this park preserves a salt marsh land system. The vegetation comprises a low woodland of Avicennia marina var. resinifera (white mangrove) and low-shrubland of Salicornia spp. and allied genera. Over thirty species of salt tolerant plants have been recorded for the park. The marshes breed a myriad of worms, shrimps and simple organisms on which fish feed, helping to stock the Port River for fishing and providing food for over forty species of birds. The latter include a number of rare or uncommon summer visiting waders, ie. Tringa terek (terek sandpiper), Limosa lapponica (bar-tailed godwit), Numenius minutus (whimbrel) and Pluvialis dominica (lesser golden plover) ... The park is relatively undisturbed, although rabbits, which cross from the mainlands at low tide, are very common on the Island. In 2014, it was reported as protecting ‘areas of mangrove forest, samphire shrubland and sand dune systems home to vulnerable and threatened species such as the Australasian bittern, the fairy tern and the white-bellied sea eagle’.The conservation park is also respectively fully and partially within the boundaries of the following protected areas - the Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary and the Barker Inlet-St Kilda Aquatic Reserve.The conservation park is classified as an IUCN Category III protected area. In 1980, it was listed on the now-defunct Register of the National Estate