After many years of planning, Council staff say the restoration of the degraded Sandhills wetland in Byron Bay is progressing, with an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) now on public exhibition.
A Council media release says, ‘The Sandhills wetland covers 1.8 hectares on the fringe of the Byron CBD, bordered by Massinger Street and Lawson Street’.
‘The area was extensively sand mined in the 1930s, destroying the natural wetlands and a lot of the native vegetation’.
Project Manager, Chris Soulsby, said the restoration of the wetland is one of the most significant environmental projects to be done in Byron Bay in recent years, and ‘will improve the quality of stormwater and provide local flood storage’.
Soulsby says the project was designed in consultation with the Arakwal and Tweed Byron Aboriginal Land Council, ‘using an approach that respects the cultural significance of the area and improves the health of Country’.
‘When the project is completed, there will be a network of paths through the wetland connecting the centre of Byron Bay to the skatepark and up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse’.
Public exhibition runs until February 19 and the EIS is available on Council’s website.
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