shuza wrote:Does Adelaide really need all those salt crystallation pans?
That is actually quite an interesting question. Right now we do need all those salt crystallization pans. The salt industry is quite an important supplier to the chemical industry, and Adelaide's dry summers make it one of the best places to crystalize salt.
In the future, however, things might be different. A lot of our water will come from desalination, so three will be a lot of hypersaline water available, so by starting with a higher salt concentration, the salt crystallization will require less space for the same amount of productivity - or alternatively the same amount of space for a much higher productivity.
Which alternative is more likely? As there will be plenty of desalination in other places, a great expansion of salt supply is unlikely to be needed to meet the demand. It is possible that there could be uses that require much more salt (such as increasing the surface salinity of the North Atlantic to keep the Gulf Stream flowing at a good rate) but it is more likely that salt supply will grow faster than demand.
The land occupied by the saltpans isn't much good for other uses. Potential Acid Sulfate Soils prevent much excavation, which limits what can be built there. The land is low lying and some of it is susceptible to flooding by king tides. The slight sulfurous smell from the adjacent mangroves swamps could also be a problem.
But the land might be good for building transport corridors. With so much land available, there's potential for a new railway alignment, laid out for high speed, with space for more tracks than we're ever likely to need. There's space for another freeway once Port Wakefield Road fills up. There's space for a railfreight terminal, and possibly even an airport (I think I once remember hearing that land in that area had been reserved for one).And that still leaves plenty of land for wetlands to act as a flood barrier, and for the salt crystalization industry.
But if the Buckland Park development goes ahead in its current form, it would be an obstacle to all this. Is that a good reason to oppose it? What does everyone else here think?