Being completely ignorant of Australian cultural resource law, I can
offer only an American perspective.  When a major dredging project is
proposed here, we tend to be as concerned about onshore impacts and
underwater impacts beyond the immediate dredging.  Have you
considered the effect of increased wave action from ship traffic on
shoreline sites? How about the spoil disposal areas? Also, there are
the impacts underwater but outside the channel itself. The dredging
activity and consequent increased traffic might disturb wrecks and
other sites far outside the immediate impact area.

I've worked on a few of these, where the archaeological impact
assessments went well outside the muck on the bottom of the stream.

At 10:15 PM +1000 5/2/03, John R Hyett wrote:
>Our company is involved in assessing the archaeology, both historic
>and pre-contact, in a proposed project to deepen and widen the
>shipping channel in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne, Australia. The main
>shipping channel is the course of the Pleistocene Yarra River,
>submerged when the rising sea waters at the end of the Pleistocene
>cut the land bridge between mainland Australia and Tasmania. We are
>interested in the possibilities of recovering both historic and
>pre-contact artifacts from the material dredged from the sea floor.
>We are seeking information on similar projects that have occurred
>any where else in the world with emphasis on the techniques used to
>recover artifacts and the likelihood of actually finding anything.
>We believe that similar techniques may have been used in recovering
>dinosaur bones from the North Sea. Any information would be greatly
>appreciated. Of course all those wishing to dive to that depth and
>excavate with a trowel are welcome to put their names forward :-)
>John Hyett
>TerraCulture Pty Ltd
>1/490 High Street
>Northcote 3070
>Australia


--
Ned

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