Mood:  sharp

Picture above: Location of sand mine impacting Tinda Creek near Mellong along Singleton Rd north of Windsor in NSW which flows into Wollemi World Heritage area. These images following are from Google Earth today and date from sometime around 2003. The latest image is from May 2005 below via Hawkesbury City Council file.

Picture above: Mellong in the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains region is at top left of the image.

Picture above: Taken 6th May 2005 by Hawkesbury City Council in overflight showing about 40% out of approved area, and starting to encroach on the northern side (top left of image) into Lot 1 with  no legal development consent in either place. Sand mine operated by Birdon Contracting Pty Ltd at Mellong with huge tailings pond which in the 1980ies comprised the wetlands and headwaters of Tinda Creek, into the Wollemi and then Colo River. Compare Google picture below which despite the 2008 copyright indicates about 2003 stage of workings (less excavation, less tree clearing, less encroachment on unapproved land).

Picture above: Image on Google Earth today but dating from around 2003 given the comparison with HCC May 2005 picture above. Here in 2003 showing much less excavation and smaller tailings pond, and less trees cleared in the east and north of the site.

Picture above: The Wilderness Society endorse the campaign to protect the water resources of Wollemi national park, world heritage area.

"Erosion and sedimentation controls [to be] submitted and approved by Department of Land and Water Conservation prior to any works commencing"

- consistent non compliance with consent conditions by the mine back to 1986 including $10,000 fine in 1989 under a previous operator for water pollution of Tinda Ck, and currently 40% out of area on Lot 2, and no DA consent ever granted for a bypass channel on Lot 1;

- apparent bias by elected Liberal Party councillors to ignore various breaches of planning law and consent conditions from 1986 to 2008;

- Liberal Party councillor verbal advice they would reject their own council officer's recommendations.

- HCC order on Birdon 25 June 2008 for refusal to pay $48,472 outstanding s.94 development contributions "towards RTA's road maintenance program";

- failure to obtain permission for a DA over Crown land between 15.24 and 20 metres in both 1996 and 2006 extension application;

- breach of water license of 40 ML/YR on their dredge pond given DWE officer Conners usage report 155 ML/YR dated 16 March 05;

- breach of an EPA/DECC license issued 2005 to prevent scowering of the bypass channel.

Attachments:

CC

..............................

Picture above/below: Stakeholders inspect the flow of Tinda Creek under Singleton Rd toward Wollemi World Heritage area during an inspection supervised by Hawkesbury City Council on 14 March 2007

Picture above: Greg Hall of Hawkesbury City Cuncil is third from right. Consultant hydrologist for HCC, Chris Jewell is last on right.

.............................

In Independent Assessment 0 6102 Singleton Road, Colo Heights June 2007  by C.M. Jewell & Associates Pty Ltd, tel. 02 4759 3251, www.cm-jewell.com.au

[at page 11 after expert Jewell notes during drought evaporation is much greater effect on Tinda Creek even allowing for less plant transpiration] [bold added]

"As the project proceeds through the stages outlined in the EIS, evaporation losses from the ponds will increase, so that by the end of the operational life there will be a 34 per cent reduction in outflow to Tinda Creek. Post-closure, there will be a net loss to the creek system of about 140 ML/year, or 37 per cent of the natural flow, due to evaporation from the ponds.

If the final landform involved a lake occupying the entire 22-ha operational site, as now proposed, then the reduction in outflow to Tinda Creek would be 204 ML/year, or 53% per cent."

[at page 12]

CURRENT SITE MANAGEMENT

..... On the basis of CMJA's recent experience in gaining project approval and carrying out long term monitoring on other sand extraction sites in NSW, the state regulators have required higher standards of impact assessment and monitoring than is the case with this site. In particular CMJA notes that  groundwater window lakes (or mirror lakes) in final landforms do not receive approval where groundwater resources are an issue of concern.

[at page 12].....Conclusions

.....[repeats the point above]

Recommendations ....

It is recommended that: ....

* Council does not consent to changes to the approved development that result in a larger area of open water in the final landform than is currently approved, unless the proponent can demonstrate, using a more sophisticated and site-specific water balance than is presented in this report, that the final landform will not result in lower catchment outflows to Tinda Creek. Preparing a better water balance would require the collection of site-specific hydrological data over a period of several years."

..............................

As regard's expert Jewell's comments regarding drought compounding water loss from open bodies of water the CSIRO July 2008 make these scary predictions re drought conditions 1 every 2 years in future compared with 1 in every 20 years:

Minister's media release here:      

06 Jul 2008       Droughts to be more severe and occur more often in the future

which leads to this:

An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events

which leads to this a 30 odd page pdf file:

An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events  PDF [2.5mb]

We had trouble downloading in a firefox browser but the explorer browser works well.

Posted by editor at 12:10 PM NZT

Updated: Tuesday, 7 October 2008 11:28 AM NZT

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