Quarry applications continue unabated

Update by Ewa Meyer, Convenor Renew Hunter Region Branch.

“There has been a failure by government to engage in strategic planning in relation to quarry developments despite calls for this from the community. Unless of course the strategic plan is to simply transform our area into a super quarry for Sydney.” Save Balickera inc.

November 2024 Update

Following the Stone Ridge Quarry hearing by the Independent Planning Commission on Thursday 14 November, here is a message from Anna Kerr from Save Balickera:

Dear Concerned Residents and Community Members,
Thank you for all of you who spoke or attended in support yesterday. It was wonderful to see the Seaham Hall full and to hear many passionate speeches on behalf of the community. You can watch a recording of the IPC Meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/live/SMrVIPy0SUM
We now await the decision from the Commissioners. Further submissions can be filed until 21 November 2024 using this link.
Website submissions can be accessed here.
Our film on our website: https://balickera.com/
There has been media coverage by the Newcastle Herald, ABC and Triple M radio:
www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8819678/residents-and-groups-slam-new-quarry-proposal-in-state-forest/
www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/abc-newcastle-local-news/abc-newcastle-local-news/104582250

‘Yet another hard rock quarry’: opponents and proponent face off at public hearing.

This was the headline from Matthew Kelly in the Newcastle Herald on 15 November. Please email the editor, or send a letter, or post your comments here.

November 2024 Update

Eagleton Quarry – having missed the original appeal deadline, we now have a renewed opportunity to oppose this State Significant Development (SSD) at the Land & Environment Court as the developer has themself lodged a merits appeal against the conditions set by the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) – specifically in relation to requiring that they not proceed until the Italia Road and Pacific Highway intersection has been upgraded. We are yet again trying to source a traffic engineer who can support our case. We may send through details of a crowd funder.

Boral’s Seaham Quarry (deepening) – Boral’s application to Port Stephens Local Council to deepen its quarry (as a stop gap measure while awaiting for its SSD application to be processed) was approved by Council in August (despite having passed a motion specifically saying they would not approve anymore quarry applications until intersection issues were addressed). Their approval was, however, apparently subject to a condition that all trucks must turn left on the Pacific Highway. Boral has now submitted a further application to Council to have this condition lifted. Executive members of Save Balickera Inc attended a meeting yesterday with our local councillors and Kate Woodridge from Boral (as organised and hosted by Bruce Lyons) and we made our feelings felt but it is still uncertain to what extent we can count on Council to block this application. I have previously sent through information with links about this application but I am currently experiencing trouble locating the material on the Council DA tracker.

Stone Ridge Quarry – this SSD has now been referred by the Department of Planning to the IPC for a public meeting at Seaham School of Arts at 10 Warren Street, Seaham on Thursday 14 November 2024 at 10:00am. The deadline for speaker registrations is 12:00pm AEDT on Thursday 7 November 2024. It is important to have as many people attend as possible to demonstrate the strength of concern about putting a quarry in Wallaroo State Forest and without care for the impacts on the environment or the community. Further information about this matter can be found here.

July 2024 Update

Submissions from local residents, environmental groups and concerned residents are trying to present some perspective on the cumulative impacts of so many quarries in our region. See side bar for individual submissions including Save Balickera, Koala Koalition, Gloucester Environment Group and VOWW.

As outlined by the President of the Voice of Wallalong and Woodville (VoWW), Margarete Ritchie, at April’s Community Forum at Tomaree Community Centre, many Port Stephens residents, together with those from the Mid-Coast and Dungog, are devastated about the potential cumulative environmental and community impacts of 5 new quarry proposals. This represents a doubling of quarry operations and associated impacts as another 5 existing operational quarries are seeking, or have been approved by the Dept. of Planning NSW or the Independent Planning Commission, to increase production and extend the operations for an average of 20 years.

Such an expansion of quarry activity is having a hugely detrimental effect on residents and wildlife from ever-increasing heavy truck movements causing noise, air & water pollution, and the clearing of native vegetation eroding habitat connectivity and displacing threatened species.

In the September 2023 EcoUpdate, we reported on the proposed Stone Ridge Quarry in Wallaroo State Forest and the letter sent to Federal Environment Minister, The Hon. Tanya Plibersek. Through the hard work of the Save Balickera Group, the Gloucester Environment Group, Koala Koalition and others, there were well over the 50 objections needed to take the issue to the IPC – a massive 135 individually-written objections out of a total of 159 submissions. Since then, residents and their supporters have sent in many more submissions on further quarry applications in the region.

Fifteen local community groups have formed a coalition to campaign against these quarry impacts and have endorsed a call for strategic and conservation planning outlined in an Issue Paper. This Paper was sent to the Hon. Kate Washington MP and the NSW Government Ministers for the Environment, Planning, Roads, Regional Transport and Roads, Resources, as well as the Secretary for the Hunter.

‘We write to request the NSW Government to take urgent measures to produce a strategic and conservation framework to better assess, mitigate and crucially, reduce the present and projected cumulative impacts of operating, approved and proposed hard rock quarries in our Lower Hunter region.’

The community groups are calling on relevant NSW Government Ministers and departments, local Members of Parliament and local Councils to cooperate to:

Develop a Lower Hunter Quarry Cumulative Impacts Mitigation Action Plan to introduce standardised, scalable cumulative impact assessment and monitoring of social and environmental impacts including traffic, dust, noise, water discharges and vegetation loss with a view to reducing impacts on the community and environment.
Quantify contemporary data on supply and demand for quarry products to guide ecologically sustainable, efficient and cost effective provision of materials, and assess alternative sources of recycled housing and infrastructure materials, including gravel and aggregates from recycled coal-ash waste.

The full document, Lower Hunter Hard Rock Quarry Strategic and Conservation Planning February 2024, is available here to download, and includes a summary of issues and the justification statement.

Useful links:

Lower Hunter Hard Rock Quarry Strategic and Conservation Planning February 2024

Hunter Quarry Expansions – Hunter Community Environment Centre

Joint letter to NSW ministers – April 2024

Save Balickera – Stop the quarries

Will State Forests become quarries? – EcoUpdate September 2023