The Meadvale landfill is a Queensland Rail initiative. The application saw a response from the community at which approximately 70 people attended an on site meeting with Council members including the Mayor. The main emphasis of the meeting was to point out the high leach rate emanating from the base of the quarry and evident all around the perimeter. The rock structure was found to be highly fractured a matter that was accepted in the consulting reports accompanying the application.Council refused the application however their reasons to the applicant for grounds for refusal did not incorporate the environment or the people within the environment of the quarry, but merely to comment that Council agreed in principle with the communities objections. Queensland Rail (QR) Lawyers saw that comment as just that and dismissed same as not a valid objection from Council. The community were therefore left high and dry in the aspects of the people and the environment. This was a complete copout by Council as far as the community was concerned. QR appealed the Councils decision to the Planning and Environment Court.

The original application cited lack of space on the Sunshine Coast for disposal of Construction and Demolition (C&D) and that trucks had to journey to Brisbane because of that restriction. The application proposal saw QR nominate a private proponent in a Gold Coast Trucking firm to transport Coastal Shire waste (after recycling) to Traveston and manage the landfill operation.

The appeal saw QR arraign eight consulting firms, Senior and Junior Counsel and a firm of solicitors against both Council and ourselves. The major concerns from the community was (and still is) the threat to the surrounding residents, noise dust and odour, and the threat to the environment of the Six Mile Creek. The Six Mile Creek is home to many threatened species, Mary River Cod, Lung Fish, Platypus, fresh water muscles etc and is upstream of the Gympie water supply.

Initial claims by the EPA report and the consultants to the application, that C&D waste was inert was soon disproved by the community and in the finality the applicant agreed to at least earth liners to endeavour to prevent leachate reaching the drainage system. In view of the problems stemming from and supported by international research into pollution from C&D waste landfill, it was unbelievable to encounter such statements to the contrary from the EPA project manager as well as such eminent consulting firms.

The quarry area is subject to a sulphide problem which has included or associated the metal arsenic. The quantity is not evident in terms of poisoning as we know it, however arsenic is categorised as a number one carcinogen. In the USA the arsenic maximum tolerance in drinking water is 10 parts per billion. In Australia its 50 parts per billion. Clinton had the arsenic levels dropped from 50 to 10 ppb however the rearrangement of some of the environmental benefits accorded to the Clinton administration  were removed by the Bush administration. However concern on the arsenic issue saw another detailed study on its ramifications as a carcinogen which resulted in it being dropped once again to 10ppb, with a rider that the only reason it was not dropped further was because of the mechanical difficulties in further eradication. 

The rapid leach column tests of the quarry material to determine the results of the various metal exposure to oxidation etc showed that over one month the arsenic content in the leachate increased by 1300%, putting it well above the nominated maximum standard. This remains a major problem for the Government as the material from the quarry is supporting the elevation of the Northern Rail Line above the flood plains of the Six Mile Creek and Mary River in the area. It is estimated that 350 000 m3 have been so placed from the quarry void estimates. Looking at an average ballast size of say 10cm3 the excavated volume would equate to approximately 21 million square metres of surface area exposed to air and water oxidisation out on the flood plains.  Our deputation to the Minister on this matter remains unanswered and nobody appears in a hurry to reply!

To the residents concerned on this issue the amount of money and time spent on the landfill acquisition as proposed in the application, appeared inordinately expensive to advantage the private enterprise proponent for a justification that we had proved untrue. There is plenty of space on the Sunshine Coast to accommodate C&D waste with all three shires accepting such waste from any source. All three shires also undertake recycling activities, another so nominated string to the QR bow. So the quandary became — what is the real reason for this landfill? Surely in these days of costs of diesel and the problems associated with trucking transport related to global warming emissions they, the Government, would not be encouraging, or indeed engaging in such environmentally unfriendly activities such as the distances trucked, particularly when there is ample room within close proximity of the source of the waste.

In the closing days of the appeal hearing Peter Beattie announced the proposal to build the Traveston Crossing Dam. It all fell into place. There will be substantial non-relocatable and recyclable waste emanating from the infrastructure within the dam perimeter. Quarrying is planned to continue from the Meadvale rhyolites and it is probable that consideration will see gravel, rip rap etc up to the dam and waste on return.

What a travesty this has been to the community. If the true purpose of the landfill is to cater for the dam unwanted infrastructure then the Government has lied to its constituents in citing the justification of the dump as otherwise. The community has already put the Government on the spot in relation to their original landfill justification, which proved a furphy. Perhaps with the general recognition that it is alright for politicians to lie under circumstance that this exercise is just another of those discretions. However equal disappointment lies closer to hand in our own grass roots representational realm, the Cooloola Council. The residents and the environment did not rate a mention from this Council with the exception of a statement that they agreed in principle with the residents, a statement the QR legal representatives treated with the legal irrelevance it deserved. Councils main aim in all this was to upgrade Woondum road and preserve its access to the rhyolite gravel supplies. The residents and the environment, especially as the proposal lies not far upstream from its own water supply for Gympie did not rate a meaningful concern.