Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance

The following except from the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader (Sutherland Shire Edition) is reproduced for BBaCA members outside the Sutherland Shire Edition circulation area, for their information. Members are encouraged to read the full article by Environment Reporter Kate Carr and background articles on:- http://www.theleader.com.au/news/local/news/general/gandangara-the-case-for-and-against/2247625.aspx

The article contains for and against argument related to the Gandangara Development Application to Sutherland Shire Council.

Kate Carr writes:

“Ever since Gandangara Aboriginal Land Council unveiled its plans in July for the 850-hectare swathe of bushland it owns in west Menai, debate has raged in the community about the merits of the $1 billion plan. The Leader asked two people at the centre of the debate, Gandangara CEO Jack Johnson and National Parks Association secretary for South Sydney region, Gary Schoer, for their views.

Balanced usage is best

By Jack Johnson, CEO

Gandangara Local Aboriginal Land Council

The project will raise funds to expand our existing programs in health, education, housing and employment that make real and lasting changes to the lives of Aboriginal people.

This is our vision for Heathcote Ridge.

Don’t underestimate our interest in making this project something Aboriginal people can be proud of. We are not your average developer. We have a long-term commitment to the site and will retain and manage the conservation reserve and employment lands.

Ultimately, we want to see Heathcote Ridge stand as testament to what Aboriginal people can deliver to the entire community.

Plants need protection

By Gary Schoer, secretary, Southern Sydney Branch, National Parks Association of NSW

FOR 30 years, NPA has enunciated many conservation reasons for conserving Menai West’s natural lands.

A groundswell by the community rejected early calls for urbanisation of the area. In 1992, NPA produced A Vision for the Future of the Remaining Natural Lands of Menai and Woronora.

Integral to this document was a recommendation for the government to add the (then) crown lands of Menai West to Georges River National Park to conserve known threatened plants — especially on ridges — to ensure the national park was sufficiently large to be viable in the long term and to keep wildlife corridors north-south and east-west fully intact.

The state government never fully investigated this proposal before the land was transferred to Gandangara.

The concept plan, as it stands, calls for near maximum development of the ridges, which successive councils, Bankstown Conservation Society and respected native plant experts, such as Alan Fairly, have documented as the most ecologically valuable parts of the area.

Barden Trig lands alone contain 180 different native plants, including several threatened species.

The NPA, through Gandangara’s Independent Reference Group, has already urged the land council to more fully pursue alternative ways to gain economic returns from these lands beyond urban development in this high conservation value area.

NPA’s position is that these lands should be purchased from Gandangara by the NSW government, with the support of the Commonwealth, at market rates.

NPA is heartened to hear from the reference group that [Gandangara] will give some consideration to a “management partner” and believes the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service would be the most appropriate partner.

If Gandangara chooses to retain ownership of the land, perhaps leaseback to the government to facilitate management could be explored. Other models worth pursuing might be for the Commonwealth government to create an Indigenous Protected Area over these lands and provide adequate funding to Gandangara to manage them for their environmental values and to restore degraded areas.

NPA has not yet received requested maps of distribution of threatened plants and floral and faunal reports to demonstrate how the decision to mainly include gullies as (inadequate) conservation lands was made. The assertion that the concept plan aimed to protect high conservation value land and threatened species needs to be supported by evidence.

A “conservation fact sheet” raises more questions than it answers. A win-win can be delivered as long as the land council is willing to look beyond urban development as a source of revenue.”

PUBLIC MEETING

A PUBLIC MEETING will be held on Thursday 11 August 2011 at Menai Community Centre, 34 Allison Street Menai, commencing at 7.00p.m. Chair for the meeting is Sutherland Shire Environment Centre Chair, Jenni Gormley.

In a forgotten corner of Tempe, east of the Princes Highway is a little known wetlands, hidden near Tempe Park. The wetlands drain from industrial land and was created from a tip by Marrickville Council. One long time local resident remembers playing in the area as a boy.

Subject of a mighty struggle in 2010 between Marrickville Council residents and the Roads and Traffic Authority over a planned expansion of the M5 East on a raised carriageway through this area, local residents did battle valiantly with the RTA and won. Of memory was a Year 6 student from Camdenville Public School, who took the microphone and asked the RTA spokesperson why they wanted to make it more dangerous for him  walking to school. This young man represented the whole community and was a credit to NSW Education public speaking lessons. No one in authority could answer.

The details of the proposed 4 lane arterial road as I understood were:

• The road will require the removal of many mature trees in a park on the Rockdale Council side of the Cooks River (do they care?)
• It will cross the Cooks River & travel between the mature Fig tree situated on the point of Tempe Reserve & the Robyn Webster Sports Centre (the white building with the brown drawings designed & painted by Aboriginal artist Bronwyn Bancroft as part of the Marrickville Council Public Arts Strategy in 2004)
• 2-3 mature Fig trees look to be in the way of the road, however the staff member said this was only a guideline & may change
• The road will go through & above the seating in rotundas, the barbeque areas & the extensive & well loved playground
• It will then follow the curve of the park along Alexandria Canal cutting off access to the water (I doubt people will want to sit under a 4 lane highway)
• Then it will cut through the urban forest on the city-side of the park before it travels along the crest of the hill just above Tempe Wetlands, & beside a golf driving range.  It will overlook houses in Tempe & most certainly be visible from the Princes Highway
• The road will stop at Sydney Park & much of the 15,000 vehicles/day will end up on King Street & Euston Road

The wetlands are home to large varieties of native and international birds. Some are: Common Greenshank, Red-capped Plover, Double Banded Plover, Sharp Tailed Sandpiper, Eastern Curlew and Grey-tailed Tattler.

Why not drop in next time you’re travelling through Tempe.

Have a look at this Youtube shot of Tempe Wetlands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WaCth6mwPk

The Botany Bay catchment is overburdened with traffic. Regional planning maps show at the heart of the problem, Sydney Airport and Port Botany. While we can’t undo the past, we can work to improve our future.

Sydney’s 1890s road and rail networks no longer cope. No matter how much work is done on Expressways and Motorways, traffic continues to multiply like rabbits. Proposals to quadruplicate the M5 and building the M6 will not solve the problem. Gridlock is costing businessmen, like Lindsay Fox, millions as his trucking firm watches trucks in Sydney Metropolitan area slow moving carparks.

Port Botany is a major sticking point, following port approvals, with air freight from Sydney Airport adding to local problems. This traffic generator is served by a single rail track from Marrickville, on a 1920s alignment. Line duplication with a spur to Sydney Airport would help. Passenger travel would change if the rail surcharge at International and Domestic Stations was dropped. Who wouldn’t like to travel to the airport by train with no parking cost premiums.

On a National level, coastal rail infrastructure follows winding alignments with steep grades and curves, mapped out by engineers from steam days. Single lines beyond urbanised areas were OK when slow steam traffic was involved, but no more. NSW rail networks have shrunk, restricting long haul alternatives. The present Melbourne-Sydney-Newcastle- Brisbane alignment, is strangled by century old infrastructure and urban restrictions. Then we come to outdated diesel locomotives, with low motive power, but cheap running costs. What ever happened to Rex Connor’s vision of an electrified line from Sydney to Melbourne. It was cheaper in 1978.

There is a major need for fast rail freight over flat track alignments with motive power transporting long container trains at high speed.

Australian Rail Track Corporation proposes an Inland Line from Port Melbourne to Port Brisbane via Albury, Cootamundra, Parkes, Narromine, Dubbo, Werris Creek and Moree to North Star near Goondiwindi; using present rail lines with some new alignments. Freight Trains could carry 50 semi trailer loads of containers at up to 160 klm/hour. (more…)

During a recent Orica Community Consultation meeting, a presentation was given by consultants, updating the ORICA Southlands Development  proposal.

Botany Bay and Catchment Alliance does not support this proposal because:

• It is being assessed under the infamous Part 3A amendment to the Planning Act and it’s successor legal framework.
• The Department of Planning is processing the proposal as a staged development. There is no long term plan showing how the proposed development will not impact on surrounding suburbs, but will transfer traffic and water problems to the detriment of the City of Botany and Randwick Council areas and their residents.
• The site is one required for future water monitoring units as the Botany Aquifer will need future stations in the next 300 years.
• Inadequate future planning for 100 year flooding events will transfer surface water to other suburban areas in an open ended proposal.
• Traffic plans show future traffic flow will generate more traffic onto Foreshore Drive, which is already overburdened by Port Botany container traffic.
• This plan introduces dangerous traffic movements with new traffic lights and turning arrangements along Foreshore Drive and Botany Road. No suburb or traffic system should bear this burden

 Surely, in a 21^st Century City like Sydney, we can:

• Long Term All of Site Plan.
• Organise All of Site 100 year flood plans.
• Not Play one suburb off against another.
• Look constructively at Traffic Flow.
• Consult the community in a meaningful way, listening and responding to valid concerns.

ORICA, the NSW Liberal Government and Planning New South Wales, are in the spotlight to achieve Long Term solutions and not Easy Fixes. BBaCA stands shoulder to shoulder with the Community on this proposal. The real solution is LEAVE SOUTHLANDS UNDEVELOPED.

IPART will be finalising its recommendations over the coming months.  Responses to the Draft recommendations can be read at www.ipart.nsw.gov.au (click on Other Industries).  IPART is yet to address the issue of empty containers and the need to increase Customs and AQIS examinations.  It recommends that the State Government ask for Auslink funding to fix homegrown rail freight problems at the expense of funding for a national project such as the Inland Rail from Gladstone through Parkes to Melbourne.

IPART, the RTA, Sydney Ports and others recommend the introduction(beyond the trial) of Super B Doubles onto our roads.  The Port is not in a Greenfield site – it is surrounded by some of Australia’s oldest suburbs and it is inappropriate to be introducing these monsters (with BTriples to follow) when individuals are downsizing to bicycles and smaller vehicles.