150,000 litres per launch
in the Driest State
in the Driest Country 
in the World...

AN UNSUSTAINABLE USE OF WATER

SouthernLaunch’s proposed facility will have a devastating impact on local water harvesting and usage, as well as contributing greatly to environmental chemical contamination of the local and surrounding environment.

SouthernLaunch plan to construct a dam that is to hold 17-30 megalitres of water – (17-30 million litres). They intend to harvest this from “run off from the surrounding undeveloped land” (p.4, p.18, Appendix V, EIS). 

When questioned if they would wait for the run off to build up prior to launching or if they would have to source the water from elsewhere initially, Andrew Curran, General Manager of Infrastructure, stated that they would be trucking it in from Port Lincoln’s Water Supply, the Uley Basin, currently in a state of critical depletion.

CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION OF OUR PRECIOUS WATER

SouthernLaunch have advised “the key chemicals of environmental concern identified in the literature review were HCl (which forms hydrochloric acid when dissolved in water), carbon black (which may contain a traces of Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons) and aluminium oxide (Al2O3)” (p. 23, Appendix V, EIS).

SouthernLaunch themselves state that “some chemicals present in the rocket exhaust may be transferred to the deluge water, potentially causing contamination of water collected in the launch site stormwater detention basin” (p6, appendix V, Southern Launch, EIS).

The risk of contamination and leeching of these chemicals into the natural environment is undeniably significant and this risk should not occur on such a fragile piece of coastal land that is meant to be protected under the Heritage Act and Coastal Conservation Zone.