KANGAROO Island Plantation Timbers (KPT) announced it had submitted its revised environmental impact statement for its planned Kangaroo Island Seaport at Smith Bay.
The EIS had been modified to address all government department and agency comments and suggestions that followed the submission of an earlier version in late September 2018.
In a letter to the ASX, KPT said the EIS showed the KI Seaport would generate “employment and economic advantages” for Kangaroo island that would otherwise take almost 30 years to accrue at the current rate of growth.
The company said the EIS shows there would be “no significant negative effect on matters of national environmental significance”.
Additionally, the company said the EIS confirms that construction and operation of the facility, with “appropriate management measures”, would have no negative effects on the “land-based abalone farm that is also located at Smith Bay”.
However, Yumbah, a company that runs an abalone farm near the KI Seaport site at Smith Bay, has worries.
Yumbah Kangaroo Island general manager David Connell said he was concerned about the potential development of the port.
“At Yumbah we know this seaport will negatively affect our business, a business that has provided a steady stream of jobs and income to the Island for the past two decades, and with potential for future growth which has been stifled for four years due to this proposal,” he said.
The EIS will be made public pending a decision from the South Australia minister for planning to formally place the document on public exhibition.
KPT manages forestry plantations on Kangaroo Island, and it is planning to build a port and a woodchip-export facility at Smith Bay on the north coast of the island.
The port is to feature a 200-metre causeway and 100-metre suspended deck jetty attached to a 167-metre-long pontoon, which will serve as the berth.
KPT has signed an agreement with infrastructure and timber marketing company Mitsui to develop, maintain and operate the onshore woodchip-handling facility.
Earlier in January, KPT signed an agreement with Flinders Ports to develop a port-operating model for the Kangaroo Island Seaport.
