Snowy 2.0 contractor and owner fined for river pollution in national park

The federal government owned energy giant Snowy Hydro and the principal contractor to its controversial Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project have been slapped with $30,000 in fines by the New South Wales environmental watchdog for two allege pollution events in the Kosciuszko National Park.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) fined each company $15,000 for sending sediment more than two kilometres down the Yarrangobilly River, and for roadworks at Tantangara that washed sediment down the Nungar Creek.

The NSW EPA says the companies didn’t put proper sediment and erosion controls in place.

“These incidents simply should not have occurred. Every industry has a role to play in reducing their impact, but your role is even more critical when you’re based in one of our state’s most pristine environments,” said NSW EPA executive director regulatory operations, Carmen Dwyer, in a statement.

“The environment around these local waterways in the Kosciuszko National Park contains highly specialised plants, animals and micro-organisms and is home to a number of endangered species like the smoky mouse and the Alpine Tree Frog.

“Actions like this can severely impact the environment not just now but for years to come and can be detrimental to many species.

The construction sites for Snowy 2.0 stretch across 30km of national park, which have been cleared and excavated, alongside hundreds of kilometres of roads and tracks.

The project is exempt from a NSW ban on transferring noxious pests between waterways if invasive species, like the Redfin perch larvae, are accidentally pumped from the Talbingo Reservoir to Tantangara Reservoir and then across the alps into the Murray, Snowy, Murrumbidgee and Tumut headwaters.

Ecologists say the native Macquarie perch is at risk of being crowded out by species such as Redfin.

The fines are just the latest problem for Snowy Hydro and its struggling contractor.

Latest fines are latest in a run of bad news

The slow-burning collapse of engineering firm Clough, which alongside Italy-based WeBuild won the tender to build Snowy 2.0 in 2018, has drawn even more attention to the controversial project.

WeBuild bought out Clough’s Snowy 2.0 share and other assets for a firesale price, after the company was put into voluntary administration.

Critics say the builders badly underestimated the cost and the time it would take to build, with a plan to finish the 350,000 megawatt (MW) hour water battery in just four years, a timeline that is being dragged out further by extremely slow tunnel boring and other factors.

The completion date has been pushed out to the end of 2027 due to more tunnelling problems.

The federal government is attempting to force the company to sort out its problems by installing a new CEO in ex-Contact Energy boss Dennis Barnes, and giving an 18 month extension to Snowy Hydro chair David Know, on the express basis that he sort out the company’s project cost overruns and delays.