RADIAL Timber, a Yarram-based local plantation company, has abandoned plans to open a small gravel quarry in Carrajung following a public campaign headed by a couple living nearby to its proposed location.
Glenn Todd, 47 and Tiffany Harrison, 36, seeking a tree change from Melbourne, bought their $625,000 Carrajung home over 19 months ago, moving in during May 2022.
Recently, the pair were stunned to find a small yellow sign with the planning notice on Monday, December 18, 2023 for the project.
The proposed quarry site was about halfway between Carrajung and Carrajung Lower. Within days, Mr Todd had sprung into action, setting up a website called No Quarry and sending out a press release to various media outlets, headlined ‘The Quarry That Stole Christmas’.
Both Mr Todd and Ms Harrison were scheduled to go away to visit family in New South Wales for the holiday period, but Mr Todd spotted the notice while he was home to care for their new puppies and small herd of sheep.
“We wouldn’t have even known this was happening until we got back,” Mr Todd said.
Last week, the couple hosted a gathering at their house to help other concerned locals share what they knew about the proposal and the process for objections.
Radial Timber Managing Director, Chris McEvoy told the Gippsland Times the saga had blown out of proportion.
He decided not proceeding with the quarry was in the best interest of everyone involved, but was concerned this episode would lead to more campaigns against other projects that need to go ahead in the region.
Last week, Mr McEvoy spoke to his consultants to put an end to about three years of work by cancelling the project, with Wellington Shire Council removing the application on Wednesday.
In response, campaign material on the No Quarry website was removed by Mr Todd on Wednesday and replaced with the following message:
“Radial Timber announced to the media their planning to withdraw their planning application on Thursday the 18th of January,” it reads.
“We were able to confirm with the council this has been actioned on the 24th of January 2024.
“We are pleased common sense prevailed and we would like to thank everyone who put in objections and also the people (who) supported our objection with expertise advise (sic) and general support.”
Mr McEvoy described the quarry as a small project that would have reduced their carbon footprint by getting crushed rock locally. It was intended to maintain the roads that Radial Timber themselves use for business, which would allow them not to rely on sourcing the gravel from somewhere else with a potentially long wait time, sometimes up to two months.
He said the actual extraction of the gravel would only need to go on for two or three weeks of the year (possibly even a shorter time period than that), and the company was willing to schedule it in a way that suited the couple, including if they went on holiday.
Mr McEvoy said as soon as he found out the couple was unhappy, he engaged with them immediately to go through the process, and there was a discussion via Zoom.
“Several emails and phone calls later things just seem to escalate and then Todd’s campaign against the quarry just grew. I was more than happy for them to object but they weren’t interested in even trying to get an outcome other than no quarry activity on that site,” Mr McEvoy said.
“I HAVE done business in Gippsland for nearly 25 years and always found locals to be friendly, reasonable and practical. Might not always agree, but could always talk. I just hope with tree changes moving to the country, these values don’t change,” Mr McEvoy said.
“This was a very minor project that would have reduced our carbon footprint by getting crushed rock locally. It was very, very small scale … I think the site’s five hectares, (it) actually requires one hectare.”
Mr Todd, who said the quarry application plan was “poorly conceived”, suggested that Radial Timber could obtain their gravel from other quarries, but Mr McEvoy said it wasn’t that simple.
“The other quarries nearby are private and are not available to us so we have to bring in rock from a distance to maintain our forestry roads,” Mr McEvoy said.
“We need good access to our plantations for fire and weed control. Rain in the (Strzelecki area) at times make them impassable.”
The company had engaged Ricardos, a professional consultant quarry company to prepare a legal submission to Wellington Shire Council.
Mr Todd and Ms Harrison said they were angry that Radial Timbers had not informed them about this earlier, as their gate was directly opposite the proposed site. Mr McEvoy said they had no idea that the couple had moved into the property, and said that the other neighbours were not opposed to the quarry.
The couple had said the proposed quarry site and adjacent facility will be less than 200m from their bedroom window situated on Old Carrajung Road. Mr McEvoy said the quarry would be 350m from the house, but acknowledged the front entrance to the couple’s property was about 50 metres from Radial Timber-owned land.
During the beginning of their campaign, Ms Harrison said the quarry would interfere with her dream of setting up a small scale farming business, while Mr Todd was concerned about the financial impact the project would have on them.
“We won’t even have the option to leave, as nobody will want to buy a house so close to an industrial quarry. After all the hard work of saving and buying our first home, we will be financially ruined,” Mr Todd said.
“We both work hard and like lots of Australians are struggling to make ends meet. But we intended to object and fight the industrialisation of our front yard.”
The pair encouraged the public to make objections to the proposed quarry on the Wellington Shire Council website. It was Wednesday, January 17 when Radial Timber decided to pull the plug.
Mr Todd was asked if a feeling of NIMBYism (not in my backyard) was a motivation for this campaign.
“Of course I don’t want an industrial quarry 40 metres from my bedroom. Yes, guilty as charged. Every single person I’ve (spoken) to about this has gone ‘that’s just crazy’,” he said.
“It’s not so much a matter of having something in your backyard. That’s reasonable. This is completely unreasonable.
“We do have timber plantations around us and they’re about to harvest reasonably soon, but they’ll come in and make an awful racket for three weeks and then they’ll be gone for 15 years. We’re happy to put up with that for three weeks of our lives.”
Referring to the application proposal, Mr Todd disputed that the works would only go for two or three weeks a year, as the stockpiles will stay at the quarry and trucks would come in throughout the year. On page six, the proposal says the quarry will extract 5000 tonnes of rock a year over those few weeks.
“(The rock) will be crushed over the two weeks … and then we’ll have a stockpile at seven times the size of our house, 5000 tonnes. The trucks will access it during the year whenever they need … that will take 400 trucks,” he said.
“So that’s 800 movements because trucks come in, trucks come out,” Mr Todd explained.
Mr Todd also believed there were staff cars and associated machinery to support the trucks coming in and out of the quarry, which Ms Harrison felt would cause extensive damage to the nearby roads.
“This road just can’t handle that increased traffic, and the company clearly expects council and ratepayers to foot the bill for repairs,” Ms Harrison said.
But Mr McEvoy said the crushed rocks would be collected by a “truck and trailer, like a b-double”, and said it was more likely under 100 trucks and a trailer, or as little as 50.
“5000 tonnes of rock is like a five-year supply. We’re not a commercial quarry, 1000 tonnes would be more than enough,” he said.
Mr McEvoy said if they sourced well over 1000 tonnes, they probably wouldn’t need to come to the quarry every year. Mr McEvoy said the 5000 number in the document could have been adjusted if needed, noting that this is the first time the company had ever looked at running a quarry.
While Mr McEvoy wanted to compromise, Mr Todd said he’d only do so if the agreed terms were in writing, as he didn’t believe conversational assurances were adequate.
Ultimately, none of this matters, as the quarry will no longer go ahead.
Asked what the company will do now that the quarry isn’t going ahead, Mr McEvoy said they’ll have to order rock from commercial quarries to repair their roads for plantation operations, and if they’re not available when needed, they’ll just have to wait.
The company said they had a long-term plan to become self-sufficient in their timber needs by planting enough trees for a perpetual resource.
“We intend to become not only carbon positive but a true circular economy which is well underway with the newly installed renewable energy plant at our Yarram mill,” the company wrote in a media release.
Mr Todd said he was happy with the outcome, saying that stress led to sleepless nights as they worked on fighting the quarry plans.
“We can go back to our lives,” he said.
