Eagleton Quarry Project

Eagleton Ridge Respite Centre (E.R.R.C.) is a centre dedicated to people with a disability and their carers.E.R.R.C. commenced its operations in 2000 and has grown exponentially with a client portfolio of over 3500 people,employing 23 staff.There are 3 facets to E.R.R.C.

1) Permanent accommodation for 6 people housed in 2 units.These clients are high support and are staffed around the clock.This is located on the property which is 10 hectares and is noted as a SENSITIVE receiver located approx. 1000 metres from the proposed above Quarry.

2)Respite Accommodation for up to 7 people located at another facility in the town of Raymond Terrace.This is not on the property at Six Mile Rd,however the clients who use this facility in the town also use the farm for day activities interacting with animals and using the fully equipped activity centre located on the farm.

3) E.R.R.C. conducts fully supported tours for its clients both in Australia and overseas.The tours are popular and are a growing facet of the business.

E.R.R.C. deals with Commonwealth,State and Local Council providers and Departments.We are a unique business in many ways however its the Farm that is the hub of the business and we rely on the environment that a rural setting provides.To this end we are concerned at the issues that we would be dealing with regarding the Quarry proposal considering its close proximity to the farm.In this regard we are considering using the services of a professional environmental consultant to help us with a submission re the proposed Quarry.We are of the opinion that an extension to the submission period is required so that we can prepare a suitable submission which would detail our concerns stating what we consider would be the negative aspects to E.R.R.C. from the proposed Quarry.We would like the period extended for an extra month,considering the fact that we have existed here for 17 years and built this business for the disabled community and provide employment for our staff.The 128 page E.I.S document submitted by the proponent has taken quite some time to prepare (years) so in the context of that,we feel that asking for an extra month should not be an imposition to the proponent nor the DOP.We request 1 extra month from the end date of the current submission period so that we may formulate a detailed submission of our own in response to the proposed Quarry. Thank you.

Eagleton Ridge Respite Centre (E.R.R.C.) comprising its owners Vince and Belinda Furlonger and all its employees.
Dale Williams
Maureen Bloemers
Emma Mcdonald
Neill Flaherty
Eric Furlonger
Tammy Mcdonald
Melanie Blue
Paige Sneddon
Heidi Mascord
Lee-Anne West
Laraine Turner
Natasha Redriff
Kerry Bockman
Robyn Cameron
Gabby Hickling
Gillian Hickling
Gail Flaherty
Ellen Sheehan
Drew Denholm
Amelia Lodge.
OBJECT to the proposal to build the Eagleton Hard Rock Quarry. I (Vince Furlonger) have completed assessing the 128 page report submitted by the developers of the quarry.Considering the fact that we provide a service to our general community,and disable community as well as having a responsibility to our employees,we have noted the response in an email from Team Leader Michelle Kirkman to myself dated 24/02/17. As per this email, I lodge this submission on behalf of E.R.R.C. stating our objection and wish to further detail and clarify our reasons for this objection within 2 weeks of the deadline (06/03/17) for public exhibition. Thus E.R.R.C. and its staff members individually,will submit their reasons for objection within this 2 week timeframe i.e by 20/03/17.

Each staff member will be briefed on the developers documentation and will provide their own personal response accordingly no later than 20/03/17. This also includes Belinda and Vince Furlonger as owners and employees and Belinda Furlonger as Director on behalf of E.R.R.C.

Kind Rgds Vince Furlonger E.R.R.C.

The Traffic Impact Assessment at Figure 2-3 shows "Schematic of Italia Road intersection with Pacific Highway." There are differences between that diagram when compared to the photograph on the cover page of the TIA and the intersection shown on Google Earth.

The intersection is a dangerous one, whichever turn out of Italia Road is desired, due to the turning Italia Rd. vehicle's limited sight distance to the south of northbound Highway traffic. The speed of the northbound traffic coupled with the time likely to be taken of laden quarry trucks exiting Italia Rd to execute a turn may lead to undesirable consequences.

See my attached submission

Submission to Department of Planning and Environment re State Significant Development Application: Eagleton Quarry. Application No. SSD7332

From Kevin and Edwina McDonald, 379 Italia Road, Balickera (East Seaham) NSW2324

We object to this proposal for the following reasons:

1. There is already a major quarry (Boral) operating in the same vicinity supplying gravel via trucks utilising Italia Road on a daily basis. At times there are trucks travelling either to or from the Pacific Highway via Italia Road almost every minute, obliging local residents to wait at the T-intersection to exit on to the Highway. These fully-laden trucks (mainly travelling southwards) have to cross the 4-lane highway from a stationary position, to access the taper lane before repositioning on the southward bound lanes. We have often witnessed near accidents, particularly for other vehicles wishing to either exit or enter Italia Road. The proposed Eagleton Rock Quarry will place an additional 15,000 trucks per annum on this section of Italia Road, thereby exacerbating an already dangerous situation. This scenario is intolerable for us local residents. The EIS for the Eagleton Quarry argues that Boral Quarry only has another 5 to 10 years of operation, but it is obvious that within that time, the dangerous traffic situation will be greatly exacerbated.
2. Should the proposed Eagleton Quarry be approved, there will be two major rock quarries almost side-by-side operating daily to extract gravel via blasting, rock crushing and gravel export via fully laden B-double trucks for a period of at least five years and very likely ten years. The problems of noise, dust, air and water pollution will be greatly increased. This is intolerable for local residents, who will hear the noise from blasting and rock crushing for hours each day. All residents in this area depend on tank water, and will be faced with dust contamination of their tank water.
3. Our road is already utilised by trucks not only from Boral Quarry but from other local rock quarries, including the Brandy Hill and Martin's Creek quarry. In addition, we have other trucks and semi-trailers carting heavy machinery, timber, milk and cattle along Italia Road, formerly a quiet narrow two-lane rural road and now a major route for truck movements. The additional truck movements predicted for Italia Road from the proposed Eagleton Quarry will obviously greatly exacerbate this intolerable situation.
4. The proposed Eagleton Quarry is obviously located within the catchment of Grahamstown Dam. This dam is one of three major sources of potable water for the populations of Newcastle and the lower Hunter region. There is rainfall run-off from the site of the proposed new quarry towards the Dam. These run-off waters exit mainly via Seven Mile Creek and the Balickera Canal. Seven Mile Creek exits towards Grahamstown Dam via pipes underneath the pacific Highway. In times of high rainfall events, flooding waters cover the last kilometre of Italia Road, making it impossible for local traffic to access the Pacific Highway. These floodwaters also sweep across the area of the property of Michael and Debbie Charlton and then straight into Balickera Canal which exits underneath the Pacific Highway into Campvale Swamp and hence into Grahamstown Dam. The potential for these floodwaters to carry pollutants from the proposed quarry site to Grahamstown Dam is high. The main contaminant will be silt, but there is also the potential for the floodwaters to also carry oils and chemical pollutants from quarrying practices.
5. The construction of the quarry will require the removal of 30 hectares of natural vegetation (dry sclerophyll forest) on a staged basis. This will obviously incur destruction and loss of local biodiversity (plant and animal species), and although the EIS refers to compensatory biodiversity offsets, the fact remains that there will be significant loss of local indigenous flora and fauna. There are other developments in the area also contributing to this loss of biodiversity and the cumulative effect will be one of death by a thousand cuts.
6. Although our residence is about 3 kilometres (in a straight line) from the proposed Eagleton Quarry, we will still hear the noise of blasting and rock crushing operations. We already hear such noise from the existing Boral Quarry. Our concern in this context is more for those residents whose properties are immediately adjacent to the proposed Eagleton Quarry site. These people will be subjected to noise from blasting, rock crushing and movement of heavy machinery on a daily basis. The rural lifestyle of these residents will obviously be adversely affected by the operation of the new quarry, and the re-sale values of their landholdings depreciated.
7. The above concerns are compounded by other developments along Italia Road including the daily truck movements from Gardenland operations (bulk mulch and other supplies), situated along Barleigh Ranch Way, and vehicle movements involved in the existing operations of dirt bike racing at Barleigh Ranch, the Ringwood MG Club and the adjacent high speed car racing facility. These developments also create significant traffic movements along Italia Road.
8. Thus the proposed development of a new and very large rock extraction quarry will exacerbate existing environmental problems of noise, dust, traffic congestion and air and water contamination. Accordingly we strongly object to the proposal to establish an additional rock quarry operation in our neighbourhood.

Kevin and Edwina McDonald

I wish to lodge my objections to this proposal due to the following factors:
1: Increased traffic on Italia Road which already carries a high number of heavy vehicles from the existing Booral Quarry, Landscaping business and general traffic using this road as a major thoroughfare.
2: The existing poor condition of Italia Road and lack of proper maintenance. This proposal will only further deteriorate the road conditions.
3: More heavy vehicles using the dangerous intersection at the corner of Italia Rd and the Pacific Highway may give rise to serious motor vehicle collisions due to poor vision and lack of a merging lane north bound.
4: Noise concerns of residents close to the proposal interferring with their peaceful enjoyment which every citizen is entitled to.
5:Dust concerns which may interfere with the health of citizens. Drinking water catchment from rooftops may be contaminated.
6:The proximity of Grahamstown Dam is a major concern.

Please see attached PDF

Please find attached PDF

Application no -SSD7332
Eagleton Rock Syndicate Pty Ltd


28th February 2017

To the Minister for planning,

I am writing this letter of opposition to the proposed Eagleton Rock Syndicate hard rock quarry currently being considered.
Application no- SSD7332, Barleigh Ranch Way, Eagleton, 2324

My family and I reside next door to the proposed site for the new unnecessary quarry on our rural farm property and with our residence only several hundred metres from the location.
There are many and varied reasons affecting both us personally as well as our neighbours and our community as a whole. There are also serious health and safety issues, environmental and financial impacts which stand to impact all those affected by this application and we believe far outweigh any reasons to approve such a development purely for some businessmen and their profit.

Every member of our small community has worked hard and poured everything into their properties to deliberately live in and bring up their families in a peaceful rural environment, which is increasingly under constant fire and attempts by developers to shoehorn in their unsuitable developments with little regard for the people whom have invested everything and have to live with the resultant consequences.
It is interesting to note that in the developers initial planning and consultation process carried out by Unwelt Pty Ltd both our property and my neighbours property which will also be one of the most directly affected properties were conveniently not included or noted in their consultancy. After learning of the application and sending an opposing correspondence, at least now we have force ably been acknowledged in the process.
Both ourselves and our entire surrounding community including the specialised respite centre business run by one of our close neighbours, whose facility has provided much needed vital support and care for the disabled and their families for close to 20 years, rely heavily on our fresh tank water supplies for our pure survival. These people work tirelessly in their business every day of the year and employ a large number of staff, providing their services to literally thousands of clients in support of the needs of these people in need personally, their families, and the community on large, and whom continually put back into the local community through their business operations many levels.

The levels of dust and contaminants that will be generated from the benching and excavation of the hill above us and its surrounding vegetation will undoubtedly impact heavily on us all with contamination of our only water supplies, and the unacceptable health related dust issues we stand to undoubtedly encounter, affecting both local business's as stated and local residents personally. This is all despite the developers unrealistic and unachievable claims of being able to control this 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.

Noise issues are also of major concern to us with heavy machinery operating above us, and within a few hundred metres at all hours without much respite according to the ludicrous proposed hours of operation being tabled by the developer.
Both ourselves and our surrounding affected neighbours will not be able to give our properties away despite pouring our lives and entire financial assets into our properties if this development is approved which is a completely unacceptable in exchange for lining pockets of select group of businessman.

A major point that needs your urgent attention is that as residents of Eagleton we already have to deal with some impact from the operations of the existing Boral Hard Rock Quarry with blasting, vibrations and noise issues despite them doing their utmost to have minimum affect on the community as possible, and being a much larger distance away from peoples homes and businesses.
Fortunately, and thankfully at the moment, this impact is nowhere near as severe as it could be as we have a decent buffer zone of vegetation and the large hill separating us from their operations and absorbing the majority of the noise, dust etc. This is the exact same vegetation that will be removed to facilitate the new proposed quarry and the exact hill that will be benched down and excavated for the material to be sold.

Not only will we suffer the impacts of the new quarry but this will be compounded and amplified by the exposure to the Boral operations that we are currently mostly protected from, creating an entire new set of serious noise,dust and health issues for the residents surrounding.
We fail to comprehend how there could be enough of a demand for the materials planning to be produced that would justify, and facilitate a second quarry being wedged in between residents and an existing quarry, all of this while located right in the middle of the Grahamstown Dam water catchment ?

We have also noted the extremely serious oversight in that there is no intention of upgrading the very dangerous intersection of Italia Road and the Pacific Motorway despite the massive increase in heavy truck and machinery numbers that will use this continuously, this on top of the trucks already operating and utilising this intersection with hundreds of movements per day from the Boral operation.
As we mentioned this is already an extremely dangerous intersection and this is a recipe for some very serious accidents. It will not be if major accidents happen it will be a matter of when and how often, at what human cost.

We also hold serious concerns as to the impact on tour local native. We currently have huge numbers of native wildlife, including a Koala population that reside on our property and the surrounding properties, including the intended vegetation and the planned hill to be cleared and decimated. It is of major concern to us and our fellow community as to where these animals will be pushed to now, despite the Wildlife Corridor passing through the proposed site.

If this unnecessary development is approved despite all the important and valid reasons why it should not, I believe the developers have the responsibility to at the very minimum equip and compensate the directly affected local residents and their dwellings with whatever is necessary to off sett at least some of the issues we do not currently experience whilst their proposed operation does not exist, and that they plan to be the direct cause of.
To name just a few, these being our tank water quality, allergies, dust and noise mitigation at whatever cost to them, although even these measures will not hand us back our lives.
Furthermore, forgetting about the tragic traffic accidents waiting to happen, the wildlife, the loss of people's livelihoods, lifestyles, financial losses, enjoyment of their surroundings, the native wildlife, the Grahamstown water catchment and so on, these individuals should be held accountable, and be made responsible for appropriate management of these major issues.

On behalf of my family and my fellow residents, thank you for your consideration of our concerns regarding this development.

Kind regards

PDF file attached

Please attached file for my submission

Please attached file for my submission

Please find attach my submission

Please find attached PDF file in submission of our objection to the proposal of the Eagleton Quarry (SSD 7332).

Please find our attached PDF document in objection the Eagleton Quarry (SSD 7332).

I strongly object to this development for the following reasons
1.Noise pollution,we already hear the blasting and crushing operations of the Boral quarry and the many trucks that use our narrow tree-lined rural road from early morning until late in the evening,this development with up to 170 EXTRA truck movements daily as well as the blasting,crushing and loading noise associated with normal daily operations would create an endless stream of noise as 1 loaded truck leaves every 6 minutes as 1 empty truck arrives .This would be on top of the trucks from Boral quarry as well as the trucks that already use Italia road as a shortcut.
2.Water. As the residents of Italia road are on tank water we already have dust issues ie dust settling on rooftops that collect our drinking water,dust on solar panels,vehicles,outdoor furniture etc .this creates more work cleaning these things as well as using more of my precious(at times) tankwater
This development would be in the catchment area for grahamstown dam which must pose a risk to this major drinking water source?
3.Traffic Management.I believe the intersection of Italia road and Pacific highway is already a dangerous area due to trucks entering Italia road from the north or leaving Italia road heading south ,in both situations trucks are starting from a complete standstill ,UPHILL ,often with a trailer on, crossing the Pacific highway at a spot where there is very limited visibility,I personally have seen many,many near misses at this spot and I think this development would only increase the likelihood of major accidents.Italia road is totally unsuitable for the size and numbers of trucks that already use it ,this development would only add to the likelihood of accidents on this narrow tree-lined "rural" road.
4.Property Value.I believe if this development goes ahead it could affect the value of my property to my disadvantage.I moved here to get away from noise of the city and traffic and an extra 170 trucks going past daily would make my plans for a quiet rural property to retire on a complete failure.

My family and I live on Italia Rd, I am concerned about the increased traffic of heavy vehicles that will result from this development. Italia road is at best suitable for light vehicles given the lack of maintenance and width. We already experience loud noises from exhaust breaking and empty trailers being bounced around the poor road surface by heavy vehicles using the Boral facility. Not only will this development negatively impact on our amenity it will also significantly increase the safety of entering and exiting Italia rd onto the Pacific Highway as the current intersection will become increasingly busier with heavy / slow vehicles mixing with light traffic. The proposed additional 170 truck movements a day is excessive for what is a peaceful rural location.

See upload

see upload

Please see attached file.

Please see attached file uploaded