TILLEGRA ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT IN TATTERS
The credibility of the Environmental Assessment Report for the proposed Tillegra Dam near Dungog has been dealt two fatal blows, according to Greens NSW MP John Kaye.
Dr Kaye said A stuttering frog has been found in the Tillegra area by a member of the public, despite the endangered species being listed in the Environmental Assessment Report (EAR) as ‘unlikely to occur’.
The embarrassing find comes on top of the revelation that the EAR was less than fully candid about the complex geological nature of the proposed site and the risks it poses to the cost of the dam.
The EAR is fatally flawed and should be sent back to the drawing board. Without full disclosure of the geology and its potential impacts on cost, and a rigorous study of endangered species, the document is deeply misleading.
Hunter Water should be forced to begin the public consultation again, this time with an EAR that comes clean on geology and costs and endangered species.
Planning Minister Kristina Keneally is being asked to assess the impacts on one of NSW’s last free flowing rivers without a reliable ecology survey.
There are likely to be many more threatened or endangered species that would lose their habitat and be driven even closer to extinction.
If the Planning Minister approves Tillegra based on this report, then she may well be signing the death warrant for many other species in NSW.
Approving the dam on the basis of this survey would be playing Russian roulette with the future of any number of endangered species. They would lose habitat and some could be driven over the edge into extinction by Tillegra.
Hunter Water and the Rees government have failed in their duty to properly analyse the geological features of the site.
First they concealed the crucial data, then they ignored it. The price of their negligence could be the pain of much greater water bills for decades to come.
The build-at-any-cost mentality is putting the economic future of the Hunter at risk," Dr Kaye said.
Newcastle Herald report at: http://tinyurl.com/NewH091116
