Margie Maccoll
Noosa Council is set to clear one hectare of koala habitat to expand its resource recovery area of Noosa Landfill at Doonan.
Council contracted an external planning assessor, JFP Urban Consultants, for its application to expand the landfill’s resource recovery area and reposition an expanded High Efficiency Sediment (HES) basin who delivered a report to Council’s General Committee meeting on Monday.
The proposal sought approval to remove 1ha of remnant vegetation for the new HES basin and resource recovery area it says aimed “at providing additional space which enables a safer and a more functional operational area for both Council and the public who are permitted access to this area”.
“The volume of concrete waste dropped off at the landfill for recycling has been steadily increasing,” Mayor Clare Stewart said.
“If we’re to keep processing all of this material, plus steel and green waste, to keep it all out of landfill then we need more space and more stringent sediment controls.
“The larger sediment basin – which the state has told us we need – will protect downstream aquatic habitats, vegetation, and wetlands from sedimentation as our resource recovery operations grow.”
Council has a major focus on removing recyclables from landfill so there is more reliance on the resource recovery area, the assessor told the Council meeting.
With the location of the HES basin in the middle, relocating the basin allows for more efficient use of land and more protection of the public entering the land. Unfortunately it will require the removal of remnant vegetation, he said.
Removal of the koala habitat would normally require state government approval but Council is exempt because the use is deemed “important infrastructure” the meeting heard.
“If council was not the applicant there would be other hurdles we would have to go through,” the assessor said.
To offset the vegetation removal Council propose revegetation of 1.8ha of the only surplus land on the site that is not regarded as remnant vegetation.
The Council report shows a detailed Offset Delivery Plan (ODP) is to be developed in accordance with the Environmental Offsets Act 2014 that must offset a minimum 500 non juvenile koala habitat trees (the impact) at the ratio of six trees planted to each one removed to satisfy the State Government Supported Infrastructure Koala Policy 2017.
The ODP is to include details such as species composition, planting density, planting methodology, annual reporting and include a minimum 5-year maintenance for the proposed 1.8ha Offset area.
A Council spokesperson said more than 76 per cent of the 322-hectare waste facility site was already protected as nature refuge.
