source : the age
The diverse landscape of West Gippsland is among Victoria’s most fertile regions, helping feed the state with its abundance of fresh produce including premium beef, dairy, apples and wine.
But what sits below the rolling hills and green plains is now attracting a different kind of industry and sparking controversy with it.
Multinational building supplies company Heidelberg Materials is proposing to transform prime farmland into a major granite quarry in Bunyip North – about 75 kilometres south-east of Melbourne’s CBD.
Beef producer David Bywater, whose property is about 800 metres from the proposed quarry, said locals were alarmed by Heidelberg’s plans to construct a pit stretching across 69 hectares with a depth about 140 metres below the surface.
He said there were about 120 homes within two kilometres of the planned site. Dust clouds, blasting and noise are among the main concerns from the surrounding community.
In 2006, the land now earmarked for the quarry was bought by a company named JRH Pastoral, leading some neighbours to assume it would be used for farming in the long term.
Three years later, the property was transferred to Hanson Construction Materials, later renamed Heidelberg Materials.
Bywater said the community had been living with the stressful prospect of an industrial quarry on their doorstep for about 20 years.
“It’s terrible when you see your friends distressed,” he said.
Tensions around new, existing and expanding quarries are playing out in dozens of locations in Melbourne and regional Victoria.
At the same time, Victoria’s appetite for construction – everything from rail tunnels and roads to household renovations – is driving demand for quarry materials that help lay the foundations for these projects.
A quarry expansion bringing the works area just metres from homes in Fish Creek, the approval of a basalt quarry with a 30-year lifespan in Beveridge North-West and regular blasting from a quarry in leafy Montrose are but a few recent examples where residents have railed against their industry neighbours.
At Birregurra, in the Colac Otway Shire, a quarry operator has applied to remove limits on the amount of rock it can extract, as well as loosening restrictions on truck movements. Truck traffic at a quarry in Grantville, south-east of Melbourne, has also sparked concern among residents.
There are about 900 quarries in Victoria, but only about 500 are in operation at any given time.
Monash University resources engineering professor Mohan Yelishetty said a growing population was increasing demand for construction materials not only for housing but roads, railways and tunnels.
“Our demand is growing exponentially,” he said.
Yelishetty described quarries as key enablers of infrastructure, and said they needed to be near the projects where the materials would be used, to reduce transport costs.
Quarries typically operate on low profit margins, unlike metals mines, which can turn higher profit margins if successful.
Yelishetty said communities around quarries often complained about blasting noise and water pollution in nearby creeks.
Bywater said quarries near farming areas came at the cost of agricultural output.
“You can’t grow grass if it’s covered in dust,” he said.
The farmer said he also worried about damage to groundwater and nearby dams from the proposed Bunyip North pit. He agreed the quarry material was important for Victoria’s economy, but maintained it was in the wrong location.
The entire project site is 220 hectares, including about 111 hectares that would be directly disturbed over the project’s lifespan.
In its environmental effects’ statement, Heidelberg said the site has reserves of about 120 million tonnes of granite aggregate that could be extracted over 75 years. It would supply the rock to construction projects in the growth areas of Cardinia, Casey and Frankston.
The environmental effects statement is required to gain state government approval for the project. An independent advisory committee will consider the project at public hearings next month.
Heidelberg Materials forecast a shortage of hard rock aggregate over the next five years, arguing new sites were required for ongoing supply.
The environmental effects statement also outlined a range of mitigation measures for groundwater management and detailed dust mitigation measures, ranging from water spraying and misting systems to suppressants and mulching.
At the end of its life, the proposed pit will be allowed to fill with water. The site is less than a kilometre from the Mount Cannibal Flora and Fauna Reserve.
Bec Skilton’s house is about 220 metres from the proposed quarry boundary. Her stables and arena for her dressage horses are about 150 metres away.
Skilton said that when her parents bought the property 20 years ago they researched the uses of the surrounding properties and found one plot of land next to theirs had been bought by JRH Pastoral, assuming because of the company name it would operate as a farm in the future.
Skilton said her family would never have bought the property had they known it would become the site of a quarry.
“It’s been 20 years of limbo,” she said. “It’s awful. You’re just treated as collateral damage.”
Heidelberg Materials did not respond to questions about the use of JRH Pastoral to buy the property. It declined to answer questions about its project, instead pointing to its environment effects statement
Skilton said she was unaware of any residents nearby who supported the quarry.
“It’s the wrong location, and they’ve got no social licence to operate,” she said. “No one here wants them.”
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Benjamin Preiss is The Age’s regional editor. He was previously state rounds reporter and has also covered education for The Age.Connect via X or email.
