<p>Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority on Friday approved the dumping of up to 3 million cubic meters of dredge waste in park waters in a move blasted by environmentalists.</p><p>The decision follows the government giving the green light to a major coal port expansion for India's Adani Group on the reef coast in December, under some of the strictest-ever environmental conditions.</p><p>It will see Adani dredge 3 million cubic meters of material from the seabed to allow freighters to dock at the port in Abbot Point, lifting the facility's capacity by 70 percent to make it one of the world's largest coal ports.</p><p>Conservationists warned it could hasten the demise of the World Heritage-listed reef, which is already considered to be in "poor" health, with dredging smothering corals and seagrasses and exposing them to poisons and elevated levels of nutrients.</p><p><a href="http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/australia-oks-dumping-dredge-spoil-in-barrier-reef-140131.htm">Keep reading...</a></p>