SA algae crisis ‘incredibly disturbing' but federal government won't declare natural disaster, Watt says

The Guardian

3 days ago

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young says $14m in federal funding is 'nowhere near what will be needed' to support South Australian communities dealing with the state's algal bloom catastrophe.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, announced the federal assistance package on Monday while visiting South Australia to see the impacts of a toxic algal bloom that for months has caused mass deaths of marine life across the state's beaches.
Watt said the bloom and its impacts were 'incredibly disturbing'. But he stopped short of declaring the event a natural disaster, saying the catastrophe did not meet the relevant definitions under the federal natural disaster framework.
Hanson-Young said the criteria used to declare such events should be examined.
As parliament returns, the South Australia-based senator also said she would push for an inquiry into the disaster to examine issues including the federal and state government responses to the event.
'South Australians have been crying out for weeks and months for federal action on this, so I'm glad to see the federal environment minister finally get to South Australia,' Hanson-Young told the ABC's Afternoon Briefing on Monday: '$14 million is good but nowhere near what will be needed.'
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Asked if the bloom was a national disaster, the Nationals leader, David Littleproud, said, 'obviously it's one of significance'.
'I think we need to broaden those definitions, and as a parliament we should do that,' he told Sky News on Monday. He also urged Labor to pursue other measures that would provide financial support to agricultural workers affected.
On Monday night, Anthony Albanese said federal funding had been timed 'appropriately' given the event was unfolding 'primarily in state waters'.
'Events do occur in our environment,' the prime minister told ABC's 7.30. 'What is important is that there be a response. We're responding, giving support to the South Australian government.'
The bloom of the microalgae species karenia mikimotoi was identified off South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula in March, and grew to more than 4400 sq km, close to the size of Kangaroo Island.
It has been breaking up in recent weeks, spreading north into Spencer Gulf, south into the Coorong wetlands and along Adelaide's beaches in Gulf St Vincent into the Port River, killing tens of thousands of marine animals.
The money is likely to be used to pay for the clean-up of dead marine life from SA's beaches, support impacted businesses, bolster community awareness about the bloom and invest in science and research to better understand the incident.
'There's no doubting whatsoever that this is a very serious environmental event facing South Australia,' Watt told reporters on Monday.
'We are in uncharted waters here.'
Asked if the bloom and its impact should be declared a natural disaster, Watt said it was not possible under the existing definition despite calls from scientists, the Greens and SA's Labor premier.
A natural disaster declaration would trigger special federal assistance measures to support individuals, businesses and communities in their recovery.
'We have managed outside the usual natural disaster framework to marshal the type of resources that South Australia has asked for,' Watt said.
'One of the difficulties has been understanding exactly what its impacts are and what sort of response is required.
'We won't solve this overnight and we are, to some extent, relying on weather conditions to help disperse the algal bloom.'
Darcie Carruthers, the South Australia-based nature campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, welcomed Watt's funding announcement but said it was overdue and more needed to be done.
'The federal government needs to focus on the causes of this economic and environmental disaster to prevent it from happening again,' Carruthers said.
'A marine heatwave and the water from the disastrous 2023 Murray Darling floods are both factors that have allowed the algae to take hold and both warming waters and floods are supercharged by burning fossil fuels.'
Paul Gamblin, the chief executive of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the devastating bloom shows
'nowhere is immune from the accelerating impacts of climate change', and called for
' major coordinated response that matches the scale of this emergency'.
'This unnatural, shocking event needs all hands on deck,' Gamblin said.
The algal bloom is naturally occurring, but the state's environment department has listed potential contributing factors including a marine heatwave that started in 2024, when sea temperatures were about 2.5C warmer than usual, combined with calm conditions.
Another was the 2022/23 River Murray flood that washed extra nutrients into the sea followed by an unprecedented cold-water upwelling in the summer of 2023/24 that brought nutrient-rich water to the surface.
Marine ecologist Dominic McAfee said the mortality in most heavily impacted areas was 'extremely confronting'.
'It seems like almost everything has died,' Dr McAfee, from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute, told AAP.
'The impacts we're seeing now could just be the start of something more prolonged.'
Dr McAfee said it had been hoped winter winds and swells would 'disperse and nullify' the algae bloom, but this had not happened.
'And there's a chance that it will continue for many more months.'