Expansion plans for Martins Creek Quarry will go on public exhibition for six weeks from October 13.
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The plans, which have caused concern for some residents of nearby towns, will allow the quarry to increase its maximum output five-fold to 1.5 million tonnes a year.
The plans will be available online through the state planning department and a public forum will be held at the Paterson School of Arts Hall, at 6.30pm on November 2.
Quarry operator Daracon released a statement this week that said the company’s Environmental Impact Statement had been accepted by NSW Planning and Environment.
It came after the state authority sent the company back to the drawing board to amend its EIS in August.
“Members of the public will have access to all documents in the Daracon application,” the statement said.
“Details of Daracon’s application have been shared with the community already via the MCQ Community Consultative Committee over the past two years.
“Many parts of the application have been changed as a result of community feedback in this forum.”
Daracon noted that the expansion would mean a projected 168 loaded trucks on the freight route per day – about 21 every hour.
The statement estimated this would account for between 5.1 per cent and 20 per cent of heavy vehicle traffic on the nine roads along the freight route.
During peak periods, a maximum of 7000 tonnes a day could be extracted from the quarry.
“This limit is to allow the quarry to provide for peak demand period, but it is not anticipated that the quarry would operate at maximum extraction capacity in most years,” the statement said.
But Martins Creek Quarry Action Group argued that the truck numbers should be doubled to account for the empty vehicles travelling to the quarry to pick up a load.
Spokesperson Darach Saunders said the project was “a controversial operation”.
“The impacts of the facility are endured on an ongoing basis by residents who live immediately adjacent to the facility and by those residents and communities who reside along the haulage routes,” he said.
“It is disappointing that Daracon has chosen to ignore community concerns regarding the impacts of their current and proposed expansion plans.
“For 14 months our group and others have communicated to Daracon that an expansion of Martins Creek Quarry is simply unacceptable and that impacts from quarrying operations and haulage of product by road will result in irreversible impacts on amenity.
“The scale of what they are proposing is absurd.”
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Nick Bielby
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has been with the Newcastle Herald since 2017.
Nick Bielby is a crime reporter who has been with the Newcastle Herald since 2017.
