Austen Quarry

<INFO REDACTED>

Dear Brendan Liew,
I'm submitting this set of objections to HI-TEC's Austen Extension on the final day of exhibition, i.e., 10 December 2014. I
spoke with you by phone and you told me that I may add detail to this submission for a further period of two weeks. If you
remember our phone conversation, I told you that I'm blind and finding it difficult to work through relevant issues in time to
meet the deadline for a submission, today. You responded by saying that so long as I submitted an objection by the close of business today, I could continue to fill-in detail for about two weeks. Many thanks, I do need the extra time and will follow-up this submission with more.

State Significant Sites On Exhibition
Austen Quarry Extension
Assessment Type SSD
Project Type Mining, Petroleum & Extraction > Extractive Industries
Application Number SSD 6084
DGRS Issued: 03/09/2013

Brendan, I hope to submit my objection in a final form at some later time but within two weeks. I aim to begin by addressing the minister as the appropriate authority.

Dear Minister,
I submit a set of objections to the Austen Quarry Extension below.

First, my local environment, Blackheath, is impacted by trucks carrying heavy loads destined for market. Roads suffer wear and tear, accidents involving trucks affect us and the noise of air brakes applied as trucks brake suddenly to comply with local speed limits are annoying. Please monitor HI-TEC's ongoing, increasing use of roads generally.

Second, I experience constant vibration pollution at all hours of the day and seven days per week. I have approached my local council for help to measure vibration intensity and also to pinpoint the source. I have had no help from BMCC at all. Although I cannot link the experience of vibration with HI-TEC's quarry, I believe that it's reasonable to suspect that very heavy work, perhaps the quarrying activity at Austen, is responsible. Please consider applying your discretion to monitor for compliance with regard to total vibration produced and also hours of operation at the quarry and its extension.

Third, apparently, the Austen extension is a thirty year development Please consider breaking the thirty years into smaller reviewable periods of time. Where HI-TEC should be compelled to comply with essential terms of their agreement, issues such as hours of operation and volume of product sent to market, need to be monitored constantly as per legislation.

Fourth, the Austen Extension appears to have satisfied all of the necessary standards for operating in a reasonably benign way. I wonder though whether the certifications that give HI-TEC authorisation to operate a very large operation for thirty years would have even conceived of the affect that up-scaled activity, concurrent activity and even deeper activity would have on issues such as vibration. For instance, figures taken in 1994 or later for blasting vibration and operational vibration may not necessarily remain relevant for the whole course of the development. Where solid hyalite may transmit/amplify vibration according to the nature of the deposit itself, vibration readings taken at a superficial level may not be true predictors of the vibration levels achieved through blasting and work at a much deeper level (half a kilometer). In other words, the essential readings for vibration taken in 1994 or later would probably not remain good for thirty years as the nature of the quarry changes from a shallow one to a much deeper one.

Following my reasoning that conditions at the quarry will change over thirty years, please implement ongoing environmental audits for compliance to agreed standards. It wouldn't hurt to make the essential certification time-limited so that HI-TEC would have to re-apply for certification at regular intervals, maybe five years.

Fifth, because HI-TEC is digging such a deep hold in the ground, it's common sense to assume that they will uncover various levels of stratified rock and even coal. Where the vertical quarry face exposes geological strata one by one, an opportunity for a different kind of mining operation may become apparent, that is, the continuous underground mining of coal and other minerals. Where the quarry presents opportunities for sly continuous, horizontal coal mining, please manage the risk by checking for mining activity generally close to the quarry (use of geophones).

I intend to flesh out these points with my reading of legislation and other authorities sources. For now, please understand that I have a set of serious objections to the quarry development as published.

In summary, I object to the lack of enforceable checks and balances that might otherwise be in place to enforce traffic volume, hours of operation and the realistic measurement to ongoing risks to the environment. In a nutshell, I hope the minister will consider and apply measures for an ongoing environmental audit of essential conditions such as vibration. Moreover, I object to the permission for the Austen development being given once and for thirty years rather than for shorter reviewable periods of time.

Sincerely,


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I object to the expansion project for Austen Quarry.
It is massive expansion of the existing quarrying operations (360% increase in volume to be extracted).
THe operations go very close to the Cox s River which feeds into the Sydney catchment for Sydney's water supply.
the bottom of the proposed extraction pit will be below the water table and so endangers the water quality and availability;
there will be a large visual impact from the operations and their aftermath.
Not all the proposed area will be rehabilitated
there will be a significant increase in the numbers of trucks on the Great Western Highway between Hartley and Penrith even Sydney. UP to 250 loads a day while any road works are being carried out on the GWH, such as upgrade from Mt Victoria west. At least a 25% increase on current numbers which were due to end shortly.

The extension sought is very long - 30 years from 2020. Population growth predictions for Sydney (and therefore demand for building materials) have many times been proved to be inaccurate, often inflated to secure favourable terms for developers and subsidiary operations such as a quarry for concrete ingredients. The term should be shorter so there can be a better assessment of the demand. As well, there is no way of predicting what % of the market the quarry can be certain to secure, so predicting how much product they would sell is very unreliable data.
Finally, water studies which purport to cover operations and their impacts up to the year 2050, where those studies do not factor in the very reliable knowledge that the climate in Western Sydney will get hotter and drier and water supply will reduce, are completely unreliable in their assessment of impacts of this project. The status quo of rainfall and temperature cannot be assumed in any environmental assessment.
The proposal should be refused. It is a massive increase for a very long time in which to accurately predict the demand for the product and the true environmental impacts. And to inflict significant additional heavy truck traffic on the highway through the Blue Mountains LGA.

Refer to attachment