Dr. Pia Winberg

Okay.

So when you're growing your seaweed, it's in a controlled environment in a tank.

Is that the right terminology?

Yeah, giant pools.

Giant pools.

So what my question is, right, we're discussing how that extra fertilizers and nitrogen go into the ocean.

Now, if you've got in these pools, how are you capturing, like, I'm just trying to find how, like, how do you capture then the nitrogen that's in the environment when you've got it in a controlled environment in a pool?

Yeah.

So there's two ways this can happen.

And the first was the way I set up here in the Shoalhaven, and I was linked to the Manildra Group, which is one of the biggest wheat refineries in the world, actually.

There's three one-kilometre trains of wheat coming down there every day.

We rely on it.

They're making the wheat that goes into bread.

They're making the starch that goes into products.

They're making the that goes into the jelly beans from the wheat.

So they have lots of nitrogen concentrated in one spot.

And so when they wash down all their systems, there's copious amounts of nitrogen that's now going through a water treatment system and watered on their paddocks.

But they're capped at a certain level because it does enter the environment and the EPA says you can't do more than this.

Because that's on the Shoalhaven River, right? Yeah, that's right.

So if they're watering their fields, that can leach down through into the system and then out into the ocean.

If it's beyond what the catchment can absorb, yes, absolutely.

So that's why there's a cap.

And that's why we went in there to say, hey, we can catch the nitrogen.

So releasing the water then is not a problem.

So we brought in salt water from the sea, added bits of their concentrated nutrient waste water.

Okay.

So when you're growing your seaweed, it's in a controlled environment in a tank.

Is that the right terminology?

Yeah, giant pools.

Giant pools.

So what my question is, right, we're discussing how that extra fertilizers and nitrogen go into the ocean.

Now, if you've got in these pools, how are you capturing, like, I'm just trying to find how, like, how do you capture then the nitrogen that's in the environment when you've got it in a controlled environment in a pool?

Yeah.

So there's two ways this can happen.

And the first was the way I set up here in the Shoalhaven, and I was linked to the Manildra Group, which is one of the biggest wheat refineries in the world, actually.

There's three one-kilometre trains of wheat coming down there every day.

We rely on it.

They're making the wheat that goes into bread.

They're making the starch that goes into products.

They're making the that goes into the jelly beans from the wheat.

So they have lots of nitrogen concentrated in one spot.

And so when they wash down all their systems, there's copious amounts of nitrogen that's now going through a water treatment system and watered on their paddocks.

But they're capped at a certain level because it does enter the environment and the EPA says you can't do more than this.

Because that's on the Shoalhaven River, right? Yeah, that's right.

So if they're watering their fields, that can leach down through into the system and then out into the ocean.

If it's beyond what the catchment can absorb, yes, absolutely.

So that's why there's a cap.

And that's why we went in there to say, hey, we can catch the nitrogen.

So releasing the water then is not a problem.

So we brought in salt water from the sea, added bits of their concentrated nutrient waste water.