Friday, 12 March, 2021
MACKAY LOCAL NEWS •
Friday, 12 March, 2021
Circulating in the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday Regional Council areas
Sarina flooding solution
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Minister invites telco complaints - P4
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www.mackaylocalnews.com.au Issue 5 • $2.50
REAL ESTATE
GUIDE INSIDE
Blast risk fixed Work to begin on Walkerston Bypass for explosive-laden trucks
(L-R) Road Accident Action Group’s Graeme Ransley, Mackay Regional Council Mayor Greg Williamson, Dawson MP George Christensen, Capricornia MP Michelle Landry and former Minister for Infrastructure Darren Chester approving the Walkerston Bypass route. Pic: Member for Dawson
john
bell Editor
AT LAST it’s happened! The risk of blowing up over 600 children and teachers at the Walkerston State School, like the horrific explosion in Beirut, will soon be prevented when work starts on the $150M, 11.3km long, Walkerston Bypass. The danger to Walkerston school students has been highlighted by the Mayor of the Mackay Regional Council, Greg Williams. “For a long time, there has been an imminent danger to students at two schools in the pathway of the narrow street through Walkerston,” Mayor Williamson said. “After what happened in Beirut with its massive explosion, the Mackay Re-
gional explosion reviewed the transport of the (same) explosive, ammonium nitrate through Walkerston and there has been a major ammonium nitrate trucking explosion in the country as well. “All these hazards including the transport of very large amounts of fuel have presented as an issues to be solved, so we can remove the danger to the streets of Walkerston and Council’s role has been to advocate a solution.” Every day, over six million litres of fuel and the highly explosive ammonium nitrate are trucked past the Walkerston State School and the adjacent 90-degree left turn onto a narrow and dilapidated wooden bridge, which is the start of the Peak Down Highway to the coal fields and to the Bowen Basin. A map of Walkerston, (on Page Two of this newspaper, supplied by Mackay’s Road Accident Action Group), shows the
school at the dead centre of a possible blast area, if there is a potential accident, which happened elsewhere when a truck carrying ammonium nitrate had an electric fault and caught fire with a massive explosion near Taroom. Fires were started up to one kilometre away, which were lit by hot metal. However this danger at Walkerston is now much worse, as mining truck traffic has dramatically increased since 2014, when Mackay’s Road Accident Action Group observed B-Doubles with fuel on the narrow main street past the Walkerston State School, child care centre and Catholic school every nine minutes. Back then, 238 B-double trucks, 217 semi-rigid and 691 heavy rigid trucks passed the Walkerston State School every day with many of these trucks carrying dangerous goods and then turning sharp left turn onto the old wooden bridge.
The danger of a collision is much worse and magnified, as many of the trucks are 3.5m wide and the old timber bridge lanes are only 2.8M wide. Pleas to prevent this potential road accident death trap first started 43 years ago in 1972, when the National Party’s MP for Mirani and the then Police Minister, Tom Newbury first proposed a Walkerston Bypass. Then, fatal accidents on the Peak Down Highway to the coal fields prompted Mackay’s Road Accident Action Group to call for a Walkerston Bypass in 2012. To rub salt into the wound, Dawson MP George Christensen explained that even though billions of dollars of Bowen Basin mining and coal mining royalties had been poured into Brisbanefocused Palasczczuk Government coffers, it refused to pay for and build the Walkerston Bypass.
In comparison, Transport Minister Mark Bailey has been accused of spending $500 million to relocate Brisbane’s former Bogo Road railway station by 400 metres, allegedly so public servants don’t have to walk up the hill to work. “In 2004, I started a petition when a Walkerston Councillor, which raised anxiety at a Commonwealth level about trucks carrying the high explosive, ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel down the main street of Walkerston and past the Walkerston State School, children minding centre and the Catholic school,” said Mr Christensen. “Mackay’s Road Accident Action Group briefed me when I was a Walkerston Councillor with the Mackay Regional Council. CONTINUED ON PAGE THREE
Underpass for cane growers refused by Department - P3