20.4 C
Byron Shire
March 18, 2024

Ballina Council on aquifers, roads and police

Latest News

Floodplain Mullumbimby

Mullumbimby is a floodplain. Every time we have a heavy downpour I am up and down through the night,...

Other News

Kylie to headline Splendour in the Grass for 2024

Taking to the Splendour stage Kylie Minouge will be the opening night headline while she makes a triumphant return home and stamps her name in the annals of Splendour lore. 

Extreme slip site on Tyalgum Road needs further work leading to road closure

The current work site on Tyalgum Road slip site has slipped further, after heavy rains affected both the site itself and the slope above the site.

Will rejected developments, now included in the TGHMS, destroy the Tweed Shire

It is unfortunate the Tweed Growth Management and Housing Strategy – draft Options Paper (TGMHS) is mired in much...

Floodplain Mullumbimby

Mullumbimby is a floodplain. Every time we have a heavy downpour I am up and down through the night,...

Editorial – Giving it a tick and flick

The rezoning of high-value agricultural land for future housing – some on floodplains – is likely to be rushed through at Thursday’s Council meeting with last-minute tinkering – see page 1.

Byron Mayor backs down over floodplain development 

Mayor Michael Lyon told Mullum residents that he has the numbers to remove floodplain development but will push through the Residential Strategy that aims for 4,522 homes by 2041.

Ballina Shire Council votes. Skype screenshot.

Ballina Shire Council’s March meeting had a focus on water, climate, roads, aesthetics and police as the area continues to struggle with the benefits and challenges of accelerating growth.

Crs Nathan Willis and Sharon Parry were apologies and Cr Keith Williams was late (held up by a traffic jam caused by flooding issues). Two other councillors appeared via Zoom.

After a lengthy discussion about climate policy, debate moved on to a plan to extend Barlows Road to help deal with Ballina’s increasing congestion. This would create a new cross road between Tamarind Drive and River Street. There are different options with different implications for environmental impact, traffic modelling and cost.

Cr Steve McCarthy said he looked at Barlows Road as a relief road, ‘to help out the dual lanes getting in and out of Ballina. Will bridges be built first?’ he asked. Staff said that would depend what came out of the investigation process that was currently underway.

Barlows Road options and traffic heat maps. Ballina Shire Council.

Cr McCarthy said he couldn’t see any negatives at all to the new road, which would make it much easier for people to access Aldi and the industrial centre from the main street.

Cr Ben Smith said the new road would be a worthy addition to the road network, but acknowledged it wouldn’t have helped with the recent flooding problem at Tamarind Drive near the highway.

Cr Smith said he enjoyed looking at the traffic heat maps provided by staff. ‘It reminds me of Sim City a little bit!’

He said that while the new road was not a ‘magic solution that will solve every problem’, it would solve some problems as part of council’s wider road strategy.

Barlow Road important to community

Cr Sharon Cadwallader said the new road was very important for the community, and heavily supported. She noted that the cost would be around $8m, but only $2.1m would need to be found by council.

Ballina Deputy Mayor Sharon Cadwallader. Photo David Lowe.

‘Everything about this project points in the right direction,’ she said, to help with the recent ‘horrendous’ congestion.

Noting his own experience being stuck in traffic that morning, Cr Keith Williams said, ‘Financially it makes sense. The traffic modelling confirms what many have said.

‘The sooner we can progress this the better, it will provide an immediate relief.’

Council staff noted that there were currently 18,000 vehicles a day on River Street, which is being duplicated to better cope. The motion to progress the Barlows Road to preconstruction phase was carried unanimously.

Underground water at Alstonville

The ripples from Rous County Council’s decision to abandon the Dunoon Dam continued with a discussion about the Alstonville aquifers.

Brian Douglas from the Save Alstonville Aquifer group made a passionate deputation in support of a motion from Cr Eoin Johnston to invite senior technical representatives from Rous to brief Ballina Council about the ramifications of using new underground water at Alstonville, citing uncertainty about recharge rates and interconnectivity of aquifers and surface water.

He said there was evidence the Alstonville aquifer was under stress, saying, ‘We need assurances from Rous that extraction will not harm wetlands and rainforests.’ Irrigated macadamia farms are also a major concern.

Cr Eoin Johnston. Photo supplied.

Cr Johnston was gearing up for a fight, and seemed somewhat deflated when Cr Keith Williams seconded his motion (Cr Williams is also Chair of Rous).

‘You’ve stolen my thunder!’ lamented Cr Johnston. ‘I’ve rehearsed and studied and now Cr Williams agrees with me!’

He spoke on the issue anyway, saying ‘I’m copping a bit of ridicule bringing such a motion when we’ve just had 600mm of rain last week, but I assure you that drought will come again and we must prepare for the vicissitudes of the future.’

Cr Johnston went on to speak about planning procedure and risk, which he said equated to hazard plus outrage.

WATER Northern Rivers presents hundreds of submissions objecting to the Dunoon dam at Rous County Council recently. Photo supplied.

‘The outrage with the dam was clear to see and it should have been clear to the planners,’ he said. ‘When this dam proposal went on public exhibition, the outrage was overwhelming.’

Cr Johnston said underground water and recycled water potentially faced similar problems.

He also said there were no approvals in place to access the deeper aquifer at Alstonville, as proposed by Rous.

Cr Johnston then stretched his dam vs underground water analogy to professional athletics. ‘It’s like getting Usain Bolt lined up for the 100 meters at the Olympics, he’s proven and has a history, he’s done a bit of running.

‘Then moments before the race starts, you bring in the reserve, an unproved athlete, and you say, can he run? He looks all right, let’s put him on. We want to see the hard evidence!’

After five minutes of this, Mayor David Wright asked Cr Johnston to bring his remarks to a close. ‘I was just warming up!’ was the response.

‘That’s what I was worried about,’ said the mayor.

More than two options

Cr Jeff Johnson said he disagreed with the premise of the motion, that groundwater should be used as major source of water supply.

Cr Jeff Johnson. Photo David Lowe.

He pointed out that there were a range of other options, including rooftop water harvesting on new developments (like Warrnambool), and increasing dual reticulation. ‘Farmers could use that. It would be a win win for everyone.’

Cr Johnson said, ‘There are better options which would lead to greater security. This motion frames the debate in the wrong way. We need to hear about other alternatives.’

But Eoin Johnston refused to add any of these ideas to his motion.

Cr Sharon Cadwallader accused Cr Johnson of ignoring cost with his suggested alternatives. ‘Why the hell would you do that when we have such rainfall in our area?’ she asked. ‘Why not explore the option of Dunoon Dam?’

She said it was not an old school option, but a ‘common sense’ option, claiming the cost would be double for other options, which she described as ‘toilet to tap’ and ‘raiding the aquifers’.

Cr Cadwallader concluded by saying, ‘Why wouldn’t we invite technical experts to come forward? It should be open to the public to hear what’s happening too. We don’t want them to get bill shock when they discover the cost of water.’

Rous Chair speaks

Cr Keith Williams said he supported the motion, which was not needed as the expert consultations were going to happen anyway.

He questioned the analogy of the Dunoon Dam with a champion athlete, saying the Dunoon Dam had never been the preferred source apart from the draft plan presented by Rous last year, which was soundly rejected by the public with a thousand submissions and 95% opposed.

Rous County Council Chair and Ballina Councillor Keith Williams. Photo David Lowe.

Cr Williams said that in contrast, ‘Groundwater has been the preferred source of water supply in the current integrated water cycle management plan since 2014.

‘Nothing has changed. This was going to happen anyway for the next ten years.’

Cr Wiliams reiterated that the whole idea of going to the deeper aquifer was to reduce competition with agriculture. ‘If we were to not proceed with this scheme, we would stay in the existing aquifers and when Rocky Creek reaches 60% capacity we will draw on them and shut down everybody else’s use of that aquifer.

‘That’s the practical thing that happens now, and if we don’t change, that will continue to happen. Ag will be impacted by our need to secure that water in dry times.’

Cr Williams reminded his fellow councillors that the current aquifer was 40 metres deep, and the proposed aquifer was 180m deep. ‘140m of rock is a lot,’ he said, noting that state regulators would have access to all the science and to Rous testing results, which were not yet public as they were commercial in confidence.

‘We need to secure town water supply before anyone else gets in there,’ he said.

The vote was carried unanimously.

Development applications

After a break, council returned to approve progressing a commercial centre at Ballina Heights and a medium density two story DA as part of Aureus, in Skennars Head, with discussion limited to visitor parking numbers.

Current retaining wall at Lennox. Google Streetview.

The focus then turned to a debate about whether money should be spent to beautify the northern entrance to Lennox Head, with the possible replacement of a retaining wall between the Byron Bay Road/North Creek Road roundabout and Allens Parade.

Brad Pollard from the Lennox Chamber of Commerce said, ‘We appreciate there are other important footpath works, but we should be doing all we can to dress up our town to help with resilience in the long term, and having concrete barriers and wire fences is not going to achieve that.’

Current retaining wall at Lennox, looking north. Google Streetview.

Cr Ben Smith asked staff what would be unfunded if the retaining wall was to be improved.

GM Paul Hickey said Cr Cadwallader’s motion was silent about what would be taken out of the existing works program to pay for it.

Cr Smith said he was happy to support the motion to consider funding for improvements to the wall, but thought the economic impacts were exaggerated somewhat. ‘Aesthetics are important but engineering-wise it does the job,’ he said.

Cr Eoin Johnston said people in remote areas of the shire ‘would not give two hoots about the aesthetics if the retaining wall is doing the job.’

In the end, all but Cr Meehan voted to progress the issue to the next finance committee meeting.

Surf schools and horses and carts

Following a tender process, a number of surf school and coaching licences were awarded for Ballina Shire, to the following businesses: Let’s Go Surfing, Soul Surf School, Kool Katz Surf School, Surf Getaways, Ability Surf and Ballina Surf School.

A motion about council meetings transitioning away from digital conferencing, and back to in-person, was prompted by a directive from the Office of Local Government.

Cr Ben Smith. Photo supplied.

Cr Ben Smith went on a spray, saying, ‘This is stupid. We’re connected by zoom guys, we’re not doing horses and carts anymore.

‘This is why the state government is so irrelevant these days, seriously! Do they understand?

‘What really bugs me about this is we’re supposed to be about getting more women in local government, we want to make it a more democratic process, but they’re making it harder for people who work part time or have a family to look after to be able to do the role of council. We need to be more flexible.

Cr Smith continued; ‘I don’t understand who came up with this policy, it’s stupid and makes no sense. It’s not good for democracy, its not relevant for 2021, and someone needs to send them a very strongly worded letter to explain that to them.’

Councillors voted unanimously to write a submission encouraging greater flexibility.

Cops are tops

Cr Cadwallader’s motion to look at increasing police numbers in Lennox Head and Ballina to service the growing population, and take some pressure off the Alstonville Station, found unanimous support.

Ballina Mayor David Wright. Photo David Lowe.

Mayor David Wright spoke warmly about police support at Ballina Airport during COVID, and said he supported increased numbers locally.

‘Policing is not like it used to be. The first thing you hear is 10% of their staff are off at any one time,’ he said.

‘It’s very complicated, very frustrating, and we’ve had some brilliant police commanders up here. They’re disappointed not to get more cadets.

‘I’ll be supporting this. Mental health and domestic violence are the two main things on the whole north coast.

‘We do need more police,’ concluded Mayor Wright.


More stories about Ballina Shire Council:

No changes to parking time limits in Ballina CBD but angled...

Car parking time limits in Ballina’s town centre are to remain as they are after local councillors voted against changes in response to public feedback.

0

What’s happening with the Alstonville showgrounds?

A war of words has erupted between Ballina councillors over an unauthorised development at Alstonville Showgrounds, consisting of a series of steel cattle pens close to neighbouring houses.

3

Councils using ticketless fines on notice

The days of receiving ticketless council parking fines in NSW are to end thanks to new directions from the Labor state government.

2

King tides over roads in Ballina this weekend

If you are out and about in Ballina this weekend keep in mind that the king tides will lead to some flooding over roads. 

0

Rous to charge residents ‘unfair’ water fee

Dorroughby resident Alex Heathwood and around another 2,100 homeowners up and down the Rous County Council water pipeline are going to be paying around $200 extra on their water bills annually for infrastructure that benefits everyone who uses RCC water.

2


Support The Echo

Keeping the community together and the community voice loud and clear is what The Echo is about. More than ever we need your help to keep this voice alive and thriving in the community.

Like all businesses we are struggling to keep food on the table of all our local and hard working journalists, artists, sales, delivery and drudges who keep the news coming out to you both in the newspaper and online. If you can spare a few dollars a week – or maybe more – we would appreciate all the support you are able to give to keep the voice of independent, local journalism alive.

2 COMMENTS

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Time to tape up

Could I suggest that all flood-affected residents in Mullumbimby turn up to the Byron Council chambers by 8.30am for the next meeting on 14...

Two charged following alleged pursuit – Ballina

About 12.20am (Thursday 14 March 2024), police from Richmond PD Highway Patrol attempted to stop an allegedly stolen Ford Focus on the M1 Motorway at West Ballina.

NSW bans offshore mining and exploration for gas and oil

The NSW Labor government has now banned offshore mining and exploration for gas and oil in NSW waters. NSW is the first state to...

Extreme slip site on Tyalgum Road needs further work leading to road closure

The current work site on Tyalgum Road slip site has slipped further, after heavy rains affected both the site itself and the slope above the site.