Geology Talk

Green light to reopen regional site

The Riversdale Road Quarry is located in Kandanga, in south-east Queensland. On behalf of landowner Ashley Trompf, Martoo Consulting put forth a development application (DA) in early 2017.

After the administering authority, the Gympie Regional Council, initially delayed its decision in late 2017 for additional details, the DA was approved in April 2018.

However, according to a Gympie Times report, the council’s approval was contingent on “multiple environmental and traffic-related conditions”.

This included an environmental management plan that would “allow potential impacts of quarrying activity to be identified and documented with council’s approval”.

"Quarrying activities close to water courses present numerous environmental impacts [like] bank destabilisation and sediment run-off, which have flow-on effects to the integrity of the waterway,” Councillor Mark McDonald was quoted as saying.

"Conditions of approval were also imposed requiring a pilot vehicle and traffic control at the Riversdale Road/Mary Valley Highway intersection for all heavy vehicle traffic movements associated with the quarry.

"These conditions were in lieu of physical road upgrading and were to address safety concerns presented by the application,” he added.

The operator had requested to make a material change of use and extract 5000 tonnes per year over four stages. The first stage would involve removing fine sand from the surface of the existing quarry pit, before moving on to screening existing stockpiled overburden, extracting top soil and consolidating the area between the extraction areas.

With an expected lifespan of more than 20 years, the site’s area is approximately 116.8 hectares. Operating hours will be between 6am and 5pm Monday to Saturday and 8am to 12pm on Saturday. However, given the limited capacity of the proposed use, the quarry will only be operational as required.

Quarry contacted Martoo Consulting regarding how it felt to have an outcome in its favour but had not received a response at time of publication.

More reading
Regional site permitted to expand
State-owned quarry awaits decision on expansion
Decision approved, reneged, appealed

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