Model Local Laws Review
Submission by
Traveston Residents Association Inc
22nd September 2007
The Traveston Residents Association Inc (TRA) submits the following for inclusion in the Cooloola Shire Council’s (CSC) submission to the State Government in its review of Model Local Laws.
TRA submits that a model law be implemented by the State Government as follows:
(a)That all commercial groundwater extraction operations in private or public lands
lying outside the Department of Natural Resources declared protection zones, be
subjected to impact assessment.
(b)That operations involving the extraction of groundwater for commercial purposes
be specified in the integrated Planning Act as not being classified under Rural
Industry, but constitute a Special Industry.
The background of this development is as follows:
1. Such a commercial operation for extraction of groundwater is under development at Traveston
2. Such development is being carried out (and continuing to be carried out) under the development guise of Rural Industry
3. Rural industry is self assessable, or under certain circumstances, code assessable under the CSC Planning Scheme.
4. The developer has deemed the operation self assessable.
5. During recent sustained pumping tests by the developer, adjacent residents claim that their own bore supplies were substantially diminished in both quality and rate of supply and in one case supply was lost altogether.
6. These domestic bore supplies have been in operation for many years (up to 40 years) in an area where there is no reticulated supply and have been the major supply for most households in the area.
7. The developer, Mr Tony Ellis CEO of Wilibmag Pty Ltd, and associated companies, has denied that his pumping operations had any effect on the adjoining lots.
8 A Government report on the bores concludes that the estimated level of the groundwater in the up gradient zones will be affected by sustained pumping.
9. The residents (claiming to be affected) claim that their bores are up gradient from the commercial operation.
10 The developer has sunk approximately 32 bores on the subject properties and has connected an array of bores by piping to a central storage point.
The reasons for our submission are:
(A) There is real acceptance that global warming is an issue we now all face.
Adverse weather cycles are predicted with prolonged droughts a definite
scenario.
(B) Residents dependent upon groundwater bores therefore will enter or are
entering an era of uncertainty of supply.
(C) Should pumping from the aquifer for commercial supplies be detrimental to the
adjacent supplies then the local residents, faced with both scenarios, could
suffer substantial diminution or complete loss of supply.
(D) The fact that the commercial proposal may affect their supply is a constant
worry to the residents.
(E) Just as with the air they breathe, the residents claim that the groundwater aquifer
is something they have come to share in harmony and a right of all, to essential
water supply for the whole localised community.
(F) Should the claims and concerns of the residents prove correct, allowing a
developer to deny that water supply by exploiting same for commercial
gain is unacceptable in this day and age of striving for community
betterment, and equitable water resource availability.
(G) TRA is concerned for the environmental sustainability of the Six Mile Creek
flows. The creek is home to the threatened Mary River Cod, the threatened
Giant Barred Frog, the Mary River Turtle, fresh water mussels to name a few.
(H) The pumping operation is adjacent to the Six Mile Creek
(I) Residents are concerned that the septic tanks servicing the adjacent housing
cluster may contaminate the down gradient operation area.
(J) Residents are concerned that the old open cut community dump in the area may,
with sustained drawdown, affect the overall water supply. They claim that the
bores immediately down gradient from the dump may owe their salinity to
leakage from the dump which they claim operated for decades, without onsite
supervision.
We submit that residents are not asserting that water supplies will be lost because of the operation. Nobody knows the effects until the operation is progressed to a capacity that may affect the aquifer. However the residents claim that they did have their water levels drastically affected at the same time adjacent sustained trial .pumping by the developer was effected.
TRA is cognisant of the fact that bores and dams are necessary for both domestic and farm irrigation purposes. However commercial exploitation of this natural resource, the body of which may transgresses a large number of properties, or is initiated and continually replenished from other properties, constitutes a different set of parameters from harvesting crops within the confines of the one ownership.
Ideally it would make sense that a declaration over the catchment of any aquifer sought for commercial exploitation would be best served under the control of the Department of Natural Resources, both from a point of view of ecological and other human uses already installed or by rights intended.
If the above cannot be implemented then at least impact assessment gives affected residents a right by way of conditions to protection, with the developer having to prove conclusively that the operation will not affect unduly those already availing themselves of the resource
We submit that the term ‘Rural Industries’ is more attuned to harvesting of crops and ancillary functions such as irrigation, packing, packaging and possibly primary processing facilities, etc within confined ownership. On the contrary the commercial extraction of water demands may affect the aquifer well outside such development ownership confines. Some Councils, who have already encountered this problem, have designated that groundwater extraction does not form part of the Rural Industry as it relates to their planning scheme.(eg Beaudesert Shire).
People, like the Six Mile Creek, are part of the environment. We submit that both are too important to risk the self assessment of such exploitation of a natural resource and respectfully request of the State Government that if State Government controls cannot be implemented, to acquiesce to paragraphs (a) and (b) above.
Facilitating this request would not only pave the way for protection of the Traveston Resident’s water supply, but also protect this important commodity, from unregulated commercial interests, for groundwater dependent residents, state wide.. Such Government control over unregulated commercial developments for exploiting this natural resource, or alternatively conditions imposed under impact assessment safeguards would be fair to both parties.
Submission prepared by
Jeff Lambert for and on behalf of Traveston Residents Association Inc.
Traveston September 2007
