Emissions a threat to ancient rock art

Further steps are being taken to protect ancient rock art on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Further steps are being taken to protect ancient rock art on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, with a call by the state’s Environmental Protection Authority to reduce emissions at a nearby industrial plant.

Rock art experts have called for the levels of acid-producing emissions to be lowered from ­industrial plants as close as 2km from national heritage-listed outcrops at the Aboriginal-named Murujuga art site.

They claim the emissions could damage the surface of thousands of rock etchings, some of which are thought to date back 50,000 years.

EPA chairman Tom Hatton said he had recommended changes to air-quality management at Yara Pilbara’s ammonium nitrate plant, effectively requiring it to revise its air quality output and progressively ­reduce emissions. He noted the company already used best-practice pollution-control technology, but that Yara should “identify and implement” new ways to reduce air emissions.

The state Environment Minister will make the final decision on reducing Yara’s emissions.

Greens MP Robin Chapple said the EPA report struggled with “the substantive issues of having some of the largest polluting plants on the globe’s most significant cultural and archaeological sites”. He said industries like Yara and Woodside’s massive LNG plant should never have been allowed to go to the Burrup. “The EPA is attempting to fix up the planning mess left by successive state governments.”