Planning and water still pose hurdles for Eden Project

Eden Project International chief executive officer David Harland gave an update on the project via teleconference at Monday’s Alcoa Community Consultation Network meeting.

Since August, Eden Project have been in talks with Alcoa, the Department of Land Water and Planning (DELWP), the state government, and the many other departments the project needs to engage with.

The proposal has made slow progress. Mr Harland said Eden needed to know, by the end of the year, who the planning authority for the project would be as well as how the water would be sourced to keep the shareholders of the $150 million project involved.

“If we can get certainty on planning and water, then the whole landscape changes.”

Mr Harland said that in their early correspondence with the state government, they had been “rather amusingly” instructed to use post instead of email.

But Eden Project has now linked with Invest Victoria, which Mr Harland said served to “help us thread our way through government”.

Despite these difficulties, Mr Harland said he was optimistic about the state government’s attitude towards the project.

“I think the political sentiment at the very top is favourable.”

There is also the need to come to a solution on how to turn the former mine into a 100-hectare water body.

Alcoa are heading the mine’s rehabilitation and it is their responsibility to find a way to fill the lake regardless of whether the Eden Project goes ahead or not.

Alcoa site manager Warren Sharp says the way this should be done “remains a point of difference between Alcoa and DELWP.”

For Alcoa, the preferred method remains to redirect Salt Creek to its original path and use it as the primary source to fill the lake.

However, DELWP is concerned about how this may affect the creek’s health, as well as the health of the Anglesea River.

There are other options for filling the lake that the various parties are exploring.

Mr Harland said for the Eden Project to be alive next year, a solution needed to be reached.

“Without that water, the Eden Project, bluntly, cannot happen.”