NBN News coverage of community outrage at Port Stephens Council’s approval of Boral’s application to deepen existing Seaham Quarry, thus extending its lifetime.

Lord mayoral candidate Ross Kerridge. Picture by Jonathan Carroll

I’ve never met Ross Kerridge (“Independent’s day”, NH, 20/7), but his concerns about “top-down style of leadership, where projects are announced and everyone is expected to fall into line when there’s been no consultation”, rings true throughout the Hunter.

In the following instance, it’s the Sydney based “top-down decision-makers” who have ignored regional community calls for measured, strategic planning for the development of hard-rock quarries.

The vast majority of the quarry product is destined for projects in the Sydney region – to benefit communities who won’t realise their new function centre or new road has been built at the expense of Port Stephens and MidCoast Koalas, let alone the rural amenity and social fabric of Balickera.

The 10 hard rock quarries either operational or proposed in the Port Stephens and Mid Coast forested hinterland areas, will irreversibly impact and change rural amenity, highly biodiverse wildlife corridors and potentially pollute our valuable water catchments.

The road networks between Raymond Terrace and Karuah that will accommodate the thousands of quarry haulage vehicles proposed are unsafe – both Mid Coast and Port Stephens councils have advocated for major upgrades.

But “top-down” decision-makers feel it’s OK to worry about upgrades down the track.

The trouble with “top-down” decisions is that they always come at a cost to the community, which has, one way or another, been excluded from the planning and decision-making process.

Megan Benson, Gloucester

https://www.newcastleherald.com.au/story/8699128/port-stephens-council-weighs-opposing-quarry-without-flyover/

1000 extra trucks a day: council push for Pacific Highway upgrade

By Michael Parris

Updated July 21 2024 – 4:12pm, first published 4:00pm

A truck moving along Italia Road last year. Picture by Simone De Peak

Port Stephens Council will be asked to oppose any Italia Road quarry development proposals which do not include a new flyover at the Pacific Highway.

Raymond Terrace-based councillor Giacomo Arnott will move at next week’s council meeting that the council write to senior NSW ministers expressing its concern at truck traffic arising from multiple quarry projects near Balickera, north of Raymond Terrace.

The Newcastle Herald reported last week that the NSW Independent Planning Commission had approved the new Eagleton rock quarry, which will produce up to 600,000 tonnes of rock annually for 30 years and generate an estimated 170 inward and 170 outward truck movements a day.

Under the approval, outbound trucks will have to turn left from Italia Road onto the Pacific Highway and take a 22-kilometre detour north via the Karuah overpass before heading back south towards Newcastle and Sydney.

Building industry supplier Boral has plans to extend the life of nearby Seaham Quarry by 30 years to 2057 and almost double its maximum output to 2 million tonnes a year.

Also in Italia Road, Australian Resource Development Group is seeking approval for its Stone Ridge Quarry, which would produce up to 1.5 million tonnes of hard rock for 30 years.

Residents call for end to quarry plans for Wallaroo State Forest at Balickera near Raymond Terrace

The three quarry projects combined would send an estimated 1000 extra trucks a day through the Italia Road-Pacific Highway intersection, or 365,000 a year.

It is likely all of the southbound trucks would be routed north via Karuah.

Cr Arnott’s motion says the Transport Minister and Planning Minister should be informed the elected council does not support any more quarry approvals without a “grade-separated fly-over interchange”.

The motion before Tuesday’s meeting “encourages” the ministers and the Hunter Central Coast Regional Planning Panel to adopt the same position.

Cr Arnott’s motion says government agencies and quarry companies must adequately address cumulative traffic impacts of their proposals on the Italia Road intersection and the Karuah exit fly-over, “which is used by significant residential traffic and local families”.

The likely truck movements from the three quarry projects prompted federal Nationals MP David Gillespie to call last year for a new interchange with slip roads from Italia Road and the Bucketts Way linked to a Medowie Road overpass.

By Michael Parris

July 10 2024 – 5:00am

A Port Stephens community group says it is “shocked” after the NSW Independent Planning Commission approved the new Eagleton rock quarry near Raymond Terrace.

EcoNetwork Port Stephens spokesperson Nigel Waters said the Balickera quarry would erode the area’s natural and social amenity and put more trucks on local roads.

The quarry, which has been seeking development approval since 2017, will produce up to 600,000 tonnes of rock annually for 30 years and generate an estimated 170 inward and 170 outward trucks movements a day.

Transport for NSW objected to the quarry in 2017 after deeming the intersection of Italia Road and the Pacific Highway unsafe for additional southbound trucks turning across northbound highway traffic.

Eagleton Rock Syndicate amended its plans so outbound trucks will turn left onto the Pacific Highway and drive 11 kilometres north before turning around near Karuah and heading south.

The road infrastructure to accommodate the massive increase in haulage vehicles is not in place, yet quarry approvals are taking place.- Nigel Waters, EcoNetwork Port Stephens

Building industry supplier Boral has plans to extend the life of nearby Seaham Quarry by 30 years to 2057 and almost double its maximum output to 2 million tonnes a year.

Also in Italia Road, Australian Resource Development Group is seeking approval for its Stone Ridge Quarry, which would produce up to 1.5 million tonnes of hard rock for 30 years.

The three quarry projects combined would send an estimated 1000 extra trucks a day through the Italia Road-Pacific Highway intersection each way, or 365,000 a year.

It is likely all of the southbound trucks would be routed north via Karuah.

Mr Waters said the combined traffic impacts of multiple hard rock quarry developments compromised the community’s ability to safely use and access the Pacific Highway.

“Simply stated, the road infrastructure to accommodate the massive increase in haulage vehicles is not in place, yet quarry approvals are taking place,” he said.

The proposed truck movements prompted federal Nationals MP David Gillespie to call last year for a new interchange with slip roads from Italia Road and the Bucketts Way linked to a Medowie Road overpass.

Residents call for end to quarry plans for Wallaroo State Forest at Balickera near Raymond Terrace

Mr Waters said the latest approval had been granted “in the absence of transparent consideration of the project’s strategic, social and conservation implications in the context of the other nine hard rock quarries operational or proposed within a 25km radius in our rural hinterland area”.

The IPC found the Eagleton site was “suitable for a hard rock quarry given its hard rock resources, topography, avoidance of major environmental constraints and access to the regional road network”.

The commission acknowledged residents’ concerns and found the impacts of the development could be mitigated through strict conditions of consent, including noise, blasting and air-quality criteria.

Nearby resident Anna Kerr said her neighbours were weighing up their options for a legal appeal.

Mr Waters said the Eagleton quarry would affect the local environment.

“The Eagleton Quarry Project will contribute to the loss of habitat essential for the survival of a number of threatened species, including our iconic koala,” he said.

“Time will tell about the impacts of another quarry in our Grahamstown Dam water catchment.”

He said the state government should “properly plan” for producing construction materials.

“It is not sustainable to effectively destroy the amenity and biodiversity of a region to support development elsewhere,” he said.

“Earlier this year we called on ministers Penny Sharpe and Paul Scully to urgently address the matters we raised in our hard rock quarry issues paper but have so far been ignored.

“Without consideration of the cumulative impacts that extensive hard rock quarry development in our region will cause, we face an inevitable destruction of the environmental attributes we so greatly value and need.”

The nearby Brandy Hill quarry won expansion approval from the IPC in 2020.