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FRE
March 12, 2014
Your independent local newspaper
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Issue 78
Camp Quoll members say no to expansion ver 40 residents and Camp Quoll members from the Central Coast community braved the wet and cold conditions to gather at the front gates of Rocla Calga Sand Quarry at 11am on Saturday, March 1, to say no to the expansion that was approved by the NSW State Government on December 23.
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Camp Quoll, named after the endangered Spotted Quoll living in the area, was set up to protect the local fauna and flora, which rely on aquifers for their survival. Camp Quoll member Ian Sutton, who is also the police liaison for the Peaceful Direct Action, said: “We are blockading the quarry in the hope that we can give a voice to the eleven known endangered and threatened animals that inhabit the proposed quarry site.” “The destruction of habitat and removal of the ridge top aquifers will dramatically alter the existing ecology and see a significant decrease in biodiversity. “With most of the country already degraded, and many of our fauna and flora species lost or endangered, the community must begin to take more responsibility and stand up to protect the last bastions of high biodiversity like that of the Central Coast.
“If the practice of quarrying these important aquifers to produce sand continues, the Central Coast can expect to see the drying out of the landscape causing a loss of biodiversity, creating catastrophic fire conditions and resulting in severe water shortages. “These aquifers provide much of our environmental flows, industrial water and drinking water, all mandatory for supporting our local economy, community and ecology. “The huge numbers of community members participating in these Peaceful Direct Actions, standing up for their local environment, is an exciting and promising prospect for a better outcome and future for the Central Coast communities surrounding Rocla Materials,” said Mr Sutton. Media release, 3 Mar 2014 Lynn Cowie, Our Land Our Water Our Future
EPA should come clean T
he Community Environment Network (CEN) has corrected claims made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that only 555,616 tonnes of waste were dumped at Mangrove Mountain.
CEN chairman Mr John Asquith said the actual amount dumped is closer to 900,000 tonnes. Gosford Council approved dumping of 240,000 cubic metres (216,000 tonnes) in a development consent in1998. How and why there is such large discrepancies has not been revealed by the EPA. “This is important as the levy on dumping is usually $107/tonne and such a volume could be worth up
to $40 million to the NSW Government,” said Mr Asquith. “In their press release, the EPA conveniently ignore this discrepancy. “Excess dumping and instability of the waste heap is the reason council have needed to take court action. “The EPA must have known what was going on,” said Mr Asquith. Copies of the licence issued by the EPA and obtained by CEN show that in June 2008 (EPA Notice 1082616) the
EPA removed Condition M7 which limited the dumping to 240,000 cubic metres in total, in line with the Development Consent. “From weighbridge figures provided by the EPA, it is clear that this limit would have been exceeded within 4 months (ie October 2008),” said Mr Asquith. Another limit (Condition L5.4) in the licence of 250,000 tonnes per annum was removed later in 2008. “It is clear that, once the limit
was removed by the EPA, this allowed the excess dumping to occur through to the present time,” said Mr Asquith. “The EPA should come clean and tell the full story of who authorised the excess dumping, why the limit was removed and where the excess dumping in excess of the consent conditions came from. “Locals have been complaining about excess dumping for some time, but their complaints have been ignored by the EPA,” said Mr Asquith. Media release, 7 Mar 2014 John Asquith, CEN