More than 20 hinterland residents are acting as secret agents as they gather evidence for Noosa Council to back up its legal case against operators of the Kin Kin Quarry.The quarry operates under a legal license but residents say increased truck movements to more than 200 a day to and from the quarry is threatening their lifestyle, businesses, mental health and safety on the road.
As the evidence is mounting Council is putting pressure on the quarry in the form of fines for breaches of its Quarry Management Plan (QMP).
At a roundtable meeting last Friday Council announced quarry operators Cordwell Resources had been issued a further $27,000 in fines, bringing the total over the past four months to $80,000, none of which has been paid.
To assist in preparing Council’s legal case, residents have volunteered to complete a 30-question survey. It asks them to detail the current environment, the nature of the impact of more than 200 truck movements daily, dust problems in the area, plus it seeks their thoughts on the best way to address community concerns.
Mayor Clare Stewart said residents were best placed to describe the environment, noise impacts and other amenity issues which relate directly to the quarry’s truck movements.Kin Kin Community Group president Jan Bonsall said depression and anger were rife in the community because of the impact of the trucks.
“It’s ruined paradise,” she said. The majority of us went to live in Kin Kin to get out of suburbia. We didn’t go there to have it inflicted upon us. If you think of 200 trucks a day, that’s fairly disruptive. It’s not consistent with the idyllic life you want to take up.”
Ms Bonsall recalled a recent incident where a mother taking her young children to school over the range was forced to swerve over to the edge of the road when she met a truck on a corner. “She’s terrified,” she said.
Ms Bonsall said the community was appreciative of the effort being put in by council and Ms Bolton.
“We know it may not end up with our ultimately gain of no quarry but if we can bring it back to normal levels we’d be happy,” she said.
“The truck drivers are there to do a job. The roads are not fit for purpose.”
Noosa MP Sandy Bolton said she had written to the Premier and relevant state government departments demanding further action for the safety of residents.Ms Bolton said assessment of the road 10 years ago found it was inadequate to deal with 80 truck movements a day and now there were more than 200. She said there had not been an assessment done on the the capacity of the road to deal with the tonnage.
“This issue is a priority for all of us and we are awaiting the engineer assessments of the haul route and timber bridges by Transport and Main Roads,” she said.
Ms Bolton said no mechanism existed to review quarry operations which raised concerns not only for the Kin Kin community but other operations across Queensland.
Last Friday the latest of several roundtable meetings initiated by council to bring stakeholders, including state and local government representatives and residents together, discussed evidence gathering measures. A quarry representative attended earlier roundtable meetings but due to the impeding legal proceedings was not invited to Fridays meeting.
The quarry was approved by council in 1987 subject to conditions contained within a Quarry Management Plan (QMP) that addresses site operations and traffic management but not extraction limits or the number of trucks permitted on the haul route.
“This is a Quarry Management Plan we inherited,” Cr Stewart said. “It would not be approved today if it came before council.”
“My message to the quarry operators is they have a license to trade however they are clearly in breach, so stop breaches. Stop engaging in behaviour that is effecting the community. These operators are part of the community so this has an effect on them.”
The meeting was the latest step in a collaborative process to address the need in the community associated with the increased movements of trucks, Cr Stewart said.
She said the next steps involved council continuing to work with the community for the next month or two to gather evidence.
Cr Stewart said council would take on the costs of the legal process and further talks with a preeminent Brisbane-based Barrister were scheduled to take place in coming weeks with an aim to finalise the legal case for the Planning and Environment Court.
