Main Content

Sustainability has just wrapped up another successful marine and environmental monitoring campaign at the Dampier Supply Base for long-standing and valued client, MMA Offshore.

The program for the 2017 reporting period, which satisfies regulatory requirements and operational approvals, comprised three monitoring components:

  • Biosentinel oysters;
  • Sediment, and;
  • Water quality profiling.

The biosentinel oyster monitoring aspect is, by far, the most complex aspect of the program – but easily the most fascinating! Black lip oysters are translocated to Dampier, and deployed at various sites throughout King Bay for a period of 3 months. As a stationary, filter feeding organism, oysters are the perfect candidates for providing an indication of environmental quality as metals and other pollutants will accumulate in the oyster tissue overtime.

However, the use of live species in monitoring programs presents a host of challenges, particularly where species highly susceptible to stress, such as oysters, are involved. Sustainability’s team of environmental specialists have spent the past few years perfecting this program, by changing the species of oyster used, streamlining the translocation process to reduce stress-induced oyster fatality and improving the deployment apparatus to reduce loss of samples and mooring equipment in bad weather.

Sustainability’s genuine passion for identifying and implementing process improvements meant that, for a second consecutive year, 100% of valid samples (live oysters) were retrieved from all sampling sites, a feat which prior to 2015, had not been achieved since the program commenced! Sustainability are proud to have been MMA’s consultant of choice to once again assist them in the execution of this unique and challenging program.

Sustainability has a broad range of experience and resource capability in marine and terrestrial monitoring services in addition to those mentioned above. Our team of specialists can design and tailor a competitively-priced monitoring program to meet any specifications, regardless of scale or complexity.