The Northern Regional Planning Panel (NRPP) recently gave a determination for a Bioenergy Facility to be built within the award-winning Byron Wetlands.
But it’s not over yet! The newly elected Byron Shire Council (BSC), as the developer, still needs to make the final decision to proceed with the project.
For the past 16 years many residents and visitors to our community have enjoyed the award-winning Byron Wetlands as a haven for biodiversity, observation, and photography, and as a place that promotes human well-being through contemplation and relaxation. This aspect of the facility was promoted by BSC over those years. It was a shock that the same Council decided to forsake this aspect and industrialise the site and so diminish this unique natural resource.
Despite the accepted conditions agreeing to monitor the affects on biodiversity and the ecological values of the site, there was no solution mandated should detrimental impacts occur. Also, the NRPP did not deem that the inevitable construction discord and vehicle movements would devalue the site in the eyes of the current users, or that it may no longer be a quiet and peaceful place for the visiting community within close proximity to our busy tourist town.
To date, there have been sixty-nine submissions opposing the $16–$23 million-dollar development and only one submission for it. After the damaging floods recently experienced by our community, should ratepayers and other taxpayers really be asked to allocate millions of dollars to this facility, when money is so urgently needed for other critical projects? Other letters to this newspaper argue that this facility will not actually reduce carbon emissions and that the Shire does not need this facility.
Byron Bird Buddies have requested that the Council reconsider all the ancillary aspects of this proposed industrial development, which is within a highly biodiverse hotspot of Byron Shire, and request that this development not proceed! If you value biodiversity over industrialisation, please contact all councillors: [email protected].
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