WA EPA warns Woodside’s Browse proposal could cause severe marine damage

Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority warned that Woodside Energy’s Browse gas proposal could cause serious or irreversible harm to marine environments, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The proposal is about 300 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, near Scott Reef.

The warning appears in a letter from then-EPA chairman Matthew Tonts, written in December 2023 and given to Woodside in 2024. Tonts raised concerns about possible damage to the environmental values of Scott Reef, Rowley Shoals and nearby marine environments. He also said there was not full scientific certainty about the risk or the nature and scope of potential damage.

The concerns therefore covered both the potential for harm and the limits of what was known about it. The EPA examined five scenarios involving unplanned releases. It assessed the likelihood of those scenarios as low, while describing potential consequences that could reach “catastrophic” levels.

The assessment records a distinction between the estimated chance of a release and the severity of possible outcomes; the letter does not treat low likelihood as proof that consequences would be minor. Tonts also judged proposed protections for green turtles and pygmy blue whales inadequate.

His comments concerned safeguards for those species within the broader environmental review. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the letter was titled “EPA preliminary view to the proponent that the proposal was unacceptable”. Woodside received the letter in 2024, and the Browse project is undergoing federal assessment.

The report does not describe the federal assessment’s outcome. It also says a 2024 freedom-of-information request for the letter was denied, although the decision referred to the document. The letter was obtained by Boiling Cold.

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook said the letter’s 2023 date demonstrated the level of attention being given to ensuring projects could proceed without such negative environmental impacts. His statement addressed the timing and scrutiny of the process; it did not provide a separate assessment of the release scenarios or the proposed species protections.

The Australian Conservation Foundation characterized Browse as carrying “irreversible” risks in its headline. The headline from thepoint.com.au likewise says hidden documents show the regulator told Woodside years earlier that Browse would cause “irreversible” harm. Those headlines add no further details about the proposed safeguards, the scenarios or the federal assessment.