Eastland Port Twin Berths

2 May

This project involved an expansion of Eastland Port’s berth area to enable two ships of up to 200 m long to berth at the port simultaneously. This included an extension of the wharf, new reclamation, dredging and upgrade of other infrastructure. The expansion will enable a significant increase in capacity at the port with the potential for container freight in the future.

CLIENT

Eastland Port Ltd

LOCATION

Gisborne, NZ

COMPLETED

Ongoing

Our Scope

Marshall Day Acoustics was engaged by the Port in 2020 to assess airborne noise, vibration and underwater noise effects from the construction works, and operational noise from the expanded activities. The consent was lodged in 2021.
In 2023 – 2024 we prepared expert evidence, mediated with other experts and attended the hearing. Consent was granted in late 2024.

CHALLENGES

We developed a noise model for the full existing port operations from scratch. This involved several visits to the port to measure all relevant noise sources, and a thorough refinement of the assumptions to calibrate the model to long term monitoring results. The existing model was essential to accurately predict the change in noise level from the expanded operations
The underwater noise assessment was challenging as there was very limited data on species in the area and no specific marine mammal experts on the project team. We therefore assessed all species that could potentially be present and predicted potential audibility ranges as an estimate for conservative behavioural response zones. Our results enabled a marine mammal expert to be engaged at the final stages of the project to support our preliminary findings.

“Marshall Day provided top tier acoustic services to Eastland Port through its marque Twin Berth development. It was a challenging project with many acoustic aspects addressed, through unclear complex expectations from the community and regulator. MDA navigated these obstacles confidently and calmly, and produced outcomes of innumerable value to Eastland.”

— Marty Bayley, General Manager Infrastructure and Commercial, Eastland Port