The Newcastle Port Authority has ignored the significant concerns of a local conservation group, storming ahead on plans to dredge millions of cubic metres to fit in more ships.

Members of the Hunter Bird Observers Club say that tonnes of sediment would be disturbed by the process, and would likely end up settling at Walsh Point. They say the stockpiling contaminated sediment continues to build up from works already, but the Port Authority believes this will only be temporary and the impacts minor.

When the environmental impact statement was released in April, numerous submissions were made calling out the risk from sediment as a reason not to go ahead. Conservationists say the failure of the environmental assessors to find the reported contamination “hotspot” near Walsh Point shows that their duties are not complete.

The Newcastle Port Corporation has defended its sampling as a thorough process, subject to detailed analysis.

Chris Herbert from the Hunter Bird Observers Club says migratory shorebirds and the local fishing industry will be dramatically and negatively affected if the dredging goes ahead.

“It's another nail in the coffin,” he says

“The cumulative impact of all these things and this will just exacerbate the problem that's already going on right at the moment... the Hunter estuary is pretty low topography and any slight increase, a millimetre to a centimetre in the tidal range, will inundate more of the salt marsh and distort the ecology of the estuary,” Mr Herbert said.

“I don't think we're ever going to stop the development of the Port and so on, and I don't think we intend to, but we need to put in compensatory measures to compensate for what they're doing.”

“They're destroying habitat because of this, they have to then provide compensatory habitat.”