Albany bomb dispute set to blow up in June

Albany Port Authority’s six-year fight with the Federal Government over responsibility for World War Two bombs sitting at the bottom of its harbour will go to court on June 11 unless last minute mediation this week is successful. The port authority has spent about $850,000 fighting to have the Federal Government accept responsibility for the bombs, which were railed to the port 50 years ago and were meant to be transported out to sea by barge. Some of the explosives fell overboard into the harbour during loading, while others were deliberately dumped in the harbour instead of out to sea. Albany Port Authority chief Brad Williamson said a suitable dredging technique was used in 2000&#4701 that had still left the bombs in the harbour, but added an extra $2.6m to the total cost. The Federal Government has claimed that the extra costs associated with the bombs amount to only $700,000. Mr Williamson said the port authority wanted the Federal Government to either pay to have the bombs removed, or allocate money to have them moved in the future when further dredging work begins. &#8220It’s not stopping trade now, but we have a major project on the horizon for iron ore trade,&#8221 he said. &#8220Having bombs in your harbour is not a good look when you’re dealing with new trade. &#8220They’re no one else’s bombs, obviously they put them there and no one else put them there. &#8220They’re arguing that we didn’t use the best technique for dealing with the issue.&#8221 Mr Williamson said the port continued to fight, despite coming up against the Australian Defence Force’s vastly superior annual legal budget, worth some $57m. The Federal Government is estimated to have spent about $2.5m on the case. Mr Williamson said it was hypocritical that the Federal Government was still talking about taking over the state-owned ports. &#8220The Commonwealth is bagging the ports for bottlenecks, but if they want to start fixing them they can start right here in Albany, rather than spending $2.5m fighting us,&#8221 Mr Williamson said. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Templeman said during an interlocutory hearing on May 12 last year that the general public would be horrified to learn that two government bodies were fighting each other over the issue. The dispute would &#8220put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of lawyers, none of which will go in any way towards resolving a practical problem of removing the ordnance from the seabed&#8221, Justice Templeman said. The Federal Government still chose to press on with its legal fight despite Justice Templeman’s criticism. Mr Williamson said the ADF had a policy of not accepting liability for more than 1000 of its contaminated sites around Australia. &#8220They’re probably protecting their policy position,&#8221 he said. Both parties are expected to meet for a fifth round of mediation this week to try to prevent the case being decided by four weeks of hearings in the Western Australian Supreme Court starting on June 11.

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