Letters Chasing unicorns National Parks’ proposed picnic area at Unicorn Falls and nearby camping ground on Manns Road should raise a number of concerns with local residents. The most obvious is an increase in traffic on already inadequate roads. One of the objectives is to ‘disperse the high volumes of people from Wollumbin and Byron Bay’, but there is nothing about upgrading Main Arm Road and Manns Road to safely carry the increased traffic. Both the picnic area and camping ground are typical National Parks-style developments, quite out of keeping with the natural low-key aspects of those areas – they will look just like any other Parks’ development, which appear aimed at an affluent market. How many pensioners or backpackers can afford twenty-something dollars for one person to camp overnight? These facilities are intended as the northern end of a proposed four-day walking track from there to Minyon Falls, with three overnight camping areas along the way. This sounds innocent enough, except for the rumours of mountainbike use of the track, and helicopter access to at least one of the camping sites. At the Minyon Falls end, the plans for development there make it look more like a Gold Coast theme park than a North Coast bush picnic area. Plans for the picnic area and camping ground can be found by searching ‘Unicorn Falls
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Cartoon by Amy Prideaux Master Plan’. Submissions are due by 13 July, but I’m sure late ones will be accepted since it hasn’t been advertised in the local paper. Matthew Lambourne Mullumbimby
Scarrabelottis I’m not entirely dismayed about the Scarrabelottis Lookout becoming the site of a deluxe restaurant, because I can imagine how pleasant it would be to have a meal with such wonderful views all around. However, I am a bit worried that I might never get to eat there, because it may become a function centre for deluxe weddings. This happened to my beloved Fig Tree Restaurant here in Ewingsdale, another high-class restaurant with great views. It became almost impossible to eat there, because it was nearly always booked out by a wedding celebration. Then it burned down. I suggest the Council try to make some provision that the restaurant really will be for the general public, as indeed the view was intended to be. Charles MacFarland Ewingsdale
Letters to the Editor Send to Letters Editor Aslan Shand, email: editor@echo.net.au, fax: 6684 1719. Deadline: Noon, Friday. Letters longer than 200 words may be cut. Letters already published in other papers will not be considered. Please include your full name, address and phone number for verification purposes.
şş ǖ şƱ ƷşƖ Thanks for the article (1 July) on the new effluent flowpath in Byron Bay. Part V of the Environmental Protection and Assessment Act enables authorities
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the new effluent route, nor to go beyond itself to gain approval. It self-approved the project. Council’s ‘Review of Environmental Factors’ (REF) was drafted in June 2019, but only shared with the public in June 2020, when it was presented to councillors. Advice wasn’t sought from Council’s own Water Waste & Sewer Advisory Committee, which includes members with skills in those areas. The REF ignores impacts like running effluent through a highly populated area; the A&I Estate. How do people feel about their new proximity to the effluent? Not investigated. What will happen in a one-in-100-year flood, won’t effluent overflow across the A&I Estate? Not investigated. What’s the impact on the Estuary of emerging pharmaceutical pollutants in the effluent? Not investigated, despite the new route getting effluent to the Estuary much quicker than the old one does. The project has some positives, but in ducking scrutiny, Council has gone with inferior project choices and is again besmirching its reputation. ▶ Continued on next page
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like councils to bypass what some call the green or red tape of development assessment. In June, Council took that option and approved its Additional Flowpath project. The project will shunt treated effluent from Byron Bay’s sewage treatment plant (STP) down a new route, including along stormwater channels of Byron’s Arts and Industry Estate (A&I Estate). The old route was through farmland to the west of the Cavanbah Centre. That route joins Belongil Creek south of the controversial West Byron urban release area. The new route joins the Belongil Estuary much closer to the ocean – just south of Ewingsdale Road bridge. In 2015 I alerted Council to the problem of STP effluent waterlogging the farmland, via a Notice of Motion. Now, five years later, Council has grown the scope of this project into preparation for expanding Byron’s sewerage system, to cope with new urban growth. That upgrade will likely fall due in 2025, under current growth strategies, including servicing ‘West Byron’ (if it goes ahead). Part V means that Council didn’t have to consult the public about
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`ƖōƷ ǯǽ ǩǧǩǧ The Byron Shire Echo 11