The Martins Creek Quarry Action Group committee has never called for the closure of Martins Creek Quarry, the facility has been able to co-exist for over a century within the local community using rail loading facilities to export product, however the current expanded scale of operations at Martins Creek Quarry and in recent times (2014/15) has had significant impacts on many residents surrounding the facility and along the haulage routes.
After a five week hearing in February 2017 the judgement by his Honor Acting Justice Molesworth in Dungog Shire Council v Hunter Industrial Rental Equipment Pty Ltd (Daracon) was handed down on the 12th of October 2018 in favor of Council with costs awarded. The court case relates only to current operations, you can read the full judgement at this link. The proposed State Significant Development Application is underway and is an independent process to the court decision.
The decision handed down by his Honor has confirmed that the operations and current scale of Daracon’s Martins Creek Quarry is largely illegal.
The decision supports what impacted community members have said for many years (since 2007 under Railcorp ownership and more recently since 2012 under Daracon operator-ship) that the operations have had far greater amenity and environmental impacts on residents surrounding the facility and the haul route than was ever envisaged to have been allowed to occur when State Rail Authority lodged and Dungog Shire Council approved a development application for a 300,000tpa railway ballast quarry at the site in 1991.
The declarations and orders made by the judge which come in to effect in 3 months will restrain the operation to a more reasonable level and require 70% of product to be transported by rail from the site using the existing rail loading facility. For the next three months until the orders come into effect Daracon is required to operate in accordance with an Interim Environmental Management Plan.
As far as MCQAG is aware, Daracon are continuing to work on their “Response to Submissions Report” which we hope will address all of the issues relating to their State Significant Development Application. The refined project seeks to quarry new areas and gain approval for 1,100,000 tonne per annum, 60 truck movements per hour and 280 truck movements per day for the next 30 years! MCQAG committees view is that the refined project scale is completely unacceptable as it is essentially the status quo from 2014/15 chaos already experienced.
The next opportunity for public participation and input will be when the SSDA is referred to the Independent Planning Commission for a decision on the expansion (we think this is still many months away). When the expansion project has been referred, the IPC will call for public submissions and convene a public meeting for all to be heard prior to making their decision.