Sewage treatment plant request for Logan River ‘stinks’ say residents

A developer has asked the state’s new Planning Minister to allow a sewage treatment plant to be built without usual planning approvals. VIDEO

Redland Bay couple Debra and Peter Anderson look out from their balcony to the site of a proposed sewage treatment plant, which will be built to service 3000 houses to be built 4km away; top, wetlands at the proposed site will be used to purify the waste water and below; an artist’s impression.

The developer of a 3000-lot housing estate, which has no town sewerage approval, has asked the state government for special consideration to build a sewage treatment plant, which will drain into the Logan River.

Lendlease asked Planning Minister Steven Miles for a special planning designation to allow it to build the plant on the river without state or local government planning approval.

The Ministerial Infrastructure Designation request was made in November, two weeks after the state election, with Lendlease claiming the plant would provide community benefits for the area while also servicing its 3000-lot Shoreline development.

Logan River residents said the request highlighted “poor planning on the run” and said the Shoreline estate should not have been allowed to proceed without adequate sewerage.

Lendlease’s Shoreline development which has no large-scale onsite sewage treatment facility.

Residents said they were also concerned that if the special designation were granted it would dissolve any public appeal rights.

The proposed sewage treatment plant is designed to use the local wetlands and to discharge recycled water before draining into the Logan River.

Building works for the Shoreline housing estate started at Redland Bay in September without the project having a large-scale onsite sewage treatment facility planned.

Lendlease Shoreline Development director Ian Murray said in the future, the plant would service other developments in the area.

“ … It will be formally assessed by the Queensland Government as part of the Ministerial Infrastructure Designation process,” he said.

An environmental assessment report by Saunders Havill Group for Lendlease said sewage from southern Redland Bay would be treated to produce recycled water for reuse or disposal.

“Importantly, the proposal will provide essential community infrastructure required to service land identified within the Urban Footprint and the Southern Redland Bay major expansion area, identified within the South East Queensland Regional Plan.”

Serpentine Creek which runs through the proposed site with a house in the background.

Residents said there would not be any benefits for the community and said they had not been adequately consulted about the process.

Redland Bay resident Debra Anderson said she believed the plant should be built at the housing estate on Lendlease land and not 5km away on her back boundary.

“Moving the treatment plant out of the Shoreline housing estate is a ploy to free up land so the developer can build more houses at that site,” she said.

“Having the sewage plant in the housing estate would deter buyers — but moving it to my back fence will certainly drop our property prices.

“There is no benefit for the local residents because we have already had to pay to have septic systems installed and we don’t want our rates to go up if we get sewerage.

“The minister needs to clearly show that having this plant away from Lendlease’s housing estate will benefit this community and that this is not just an exercise in helping a private developer make a profit.”

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Logan resident Ken Thomas said he was concerned about the possibility that the community would not be consulted or have the right of appeal.

“I am seriously concerned that the state’s infrastructure designation process, one that is usually saved for true community infrastructure projects, may be used by a private developer to gain a development approval with reduced transparency,” he said.

“I am also concerned it will abet a developer’s own personal gain at the expense of the community.”

Professor of Toxicology at RMIT Jorma Ahokas said he believed there would be “negative” effects of siting the sewage treatment plant in sensitive wetlands and dissipating the effluent on to 10 hectares of mangrove.

Professor of Toxicology at RMIT Jorma Ahokas says the treatment plant has a poorly developed plan for waste water disposal through wetlands and into the Logan River.

“Dissipation of waste water into mangroves, which is tidal, means effectively releasing into the Logan River, which according to State Government authorities is at its capacity in receiving any contaminated or partially contaminated water,” he said.