By Rhiannon Shine

Copyright abc

A top statistician says he quit a landmark study into whether heavy industry is damaging ancient rock art in Western Australia’s north after the government misrepresented his team’s key finding.

Adrian Baddeley and his team of research scientists discovered rocks found closer to polluting industries on the Burrup Peninsula had degraded more than those located further away.

The scientists had been tasked with finding ways to protect the area’s priceless Indigenous carvings, thought to be tens of thousands of years old.

But when their findings were handed to government, he claimed they were undermined in a briefing prepared for the public by a government department.

“Now when I see other reports about an independent scientific review of something, I wonder whether the same thing is happening with them as well,” he said.

The state government strongly rejects Professor Baddeley’s views.

In revelations this week, Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt was advised emissions from Woodside’s Karratha Gas Plant may be having an adverse effect on the rock art, before he granted the company an extension to keep operating there for another 40 years.

Minister Watt approved the extension with strict conditions on Woodside that included lowering emissions of specific pollutants.

A ‘rosy spin’

Murujuga is a globally significant area home to more than a million ancient rock carvings — as well as one of WA’s biggest industrial hubs.

For years, scientists have been trying to find out whether the industrial air emissions could degrade the ancient carvings — some of which are thought to date back 50,000 years.

In the hope of settling the science and protecting the rock art, the WA government commissioned the Murujuga Rock Art Monitoring Program (MRAMP) study in 2020 — a five-year project co-funded with industry.

In mid-2024, a team of experts from Curtin University handed over its research outlining potentially risky levels of air emissions.

That report was closely examined by the federal government as it weighed up whether to approve a 40-year extension for Woodside’s gas plant.

In addition to the published 800-page report, the findings were also crunched to an eight-page briefing by the relevant WA government department, DWER, in collaboration with the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation.

Professor Baddeley felt that summary underplayed his team’s most significant discovery, that rocks located closest to industry had elevated levels of porosity — or degradation.

In May, he formally complained to DWER about how his team’s science was presented in the summary — particularly the removal of one of two lines from a graph showing different thresholds for potentially risky air emission levels, which he said was “unacceptable interference”.

DWER repeatedly defended the decision to remove the line from the summary document.

It said the full graph was publicly available in the longer report and the summary was intended to “simplify” key findings.

Emails obtained via Freedom of Information laws revealed Professor Ben Mullins, who led the Curtin team, wrote to one of his superiors in May saying the scientists wanted the line to remain but claimed DWER “insisted” on its removal.

DWER put a “very rosy spin” on the scientific findings, he wrote in the email.

Professor Mullins has since told the ABC there had been “robust discussions” about the content of the summary, but he ultimately agreed to it before publication.

“The year two report was published in its entirety, as written by the scientists without any influence,” he said.

He said the line that was removed from the graph in the separate summary document was less reliable, and that new science indicates sulfur dioxide more important than nitrogen dioxide.

He has previously said it would have be difficult to explain the line’s significance in the smaller document and its removal was appropriate for “effective communication”.

‘Very uncomfortable’

Professor Baddeley said he never received a response to his DWER complaint — and recently quit the project.

He said when the Curtin team discovered the elevated degradation in late 2023, the scientists considered it a major finding.

“In a scientific study, when you find something … some kind of smoking gun, that’s usually pretty important,” Professor Baddeley said.

It was significant, he said, because the Murujuga artworks were carved into a very thin outer layer of rock.

“And therefore they are just more physically vulnerable — capable of flaking, collapsing or deteriorating more quickly,” Professor Baddeley said.

He said he became “very uncomfortable” hearing DWER’s attitude to the findings.

“People talking about, ‘well this is just a shallow part of the rock and it’s only in a few rocks and it happened in the past,” he said.

Premier ‘confident’ rock art protected

The report suggested the degradation was likely linked to industrial pollution, potentially linked to a nearby power station in service from 1966 until 2010.

In May, WA Premier Roger Cook said the finding indicated current industry on the Burrup had not damaged the rock art, giving the community “confidence” in its protection.

“I think it was a power generator that was placed there in the 1970s — which may have had an impact in relation to the porosity of some of the rocks,” he told a press conference in late May.

“But it’s very pleasing that no ongoing impacts as a result of that industrial activity.”

But Professor Baddeley strongly disagreed, saying that did not reflect the report’s findings.

“All we can reasonably say is that industrial pollution — chronic exposure over 60 years — is likely to have caused this pattern of damage,” he said.

Premier Cook later told the ABC he stood by his statements, which he said were informed by DWER.

For it’s partm, DWER maintained that “current activity in the area is not believed to be affecting the rock art.”

“This is an example of minimising the findings,” Professor Baddeley claimed.

The scientists also took rock samples back to the lab, put them in a chamber and exposed them to high levels of the pollutants present on the Burrup, which confirmed emissions can cause damage.

As well as the other conditions imposed by Minister Watt, Woodside must also comply with any new air quality standards derived from the ongoing MRAMP study.

Professor Baddeley said that made independence and transparency around the presentation of the study results even more crucial.

“A huge amount of money and other things went into that science,” he said.

“I worry that this has been a big opportunity and a big project that has been in some sense thwarted.”

‘I care deeply’

Despite being a regular Greens donor, Professor Baddeley denied his decision to speak out was shaped by any bias.

“I’m not an activist, I am a scientist,” he said.

“I have no agenda except that I care deeply about scientific integrity.”

The third report of the MRAMP study is currently being peer reviewed, which Professor Baddeley said he hoped his colleagues would be free to speak about going forward.

Professor Mullins said the MRAMP team was reviewing its communications strategy for the year 3 report.

In a statement, the Murujuga Aboriginal Corporation said if at any time the research showed industry was having an impact on the rock art, it would “hold the government to account”.