Coffs Councillors quiz staff over decision to truck soil to Queensland

Never has the subject of dirt been so gripping, as one by one, councillors stood up to query how 23,000 tonnes of soil ended up being trucked interstate.

The words ‘gripping’ and ‘council’ aren’t often seen in the same sentence, but thanks to some intense questioning and a series of unfortunate technical difficulties, a section of last week’s council meeting played out it dramatic fashion.

And of all things, the subject matter was soil.

Coffs Harbour City Councillors took the unusual step of voting down an inconsequential motion to simply ‘note’ a staff report in an apparent protest at how roughly 23,000 tonnes of acid-sulfate soil from the Cultural and Civic Space came to be shipped to Queensland.

Councillors had asked for the report to be prepared by staff after it was revealed in May that a plan to dump the soil in Sawtell had been changed – at a significant cost — in favour of the Queensland option.

Despite the report containing a comprehensive breakdown of the events leading up to the decision, one by one councillors took turns questioning various aspects of it during a complex discussion.

The issue came about after the council’s first preferred site of disposal, the Airport Enterprise Park, was ruled out. But councillors asked why neither council staff nor its consultants contacted the Environmental Protection Agency in their attempts to find an alternative.

Acid sulfate soil can be harmful when disturbed and developers are required to treat it or dispose of it appropriately.

“I am just not really satisfied with the answer, I am not satisfied that it took nearly four months for this (report) to come back and I find there are inconsistencies,” Cr Sally Townley said.

Cr Tegan Swan said throughout the process it was “repeatedly recommended” they engage with the EPA yet that was not done until after contracts had been signed with Lipman – in February.

“It’s identified back in December that it needs to be investigated, that other options need to be considered, that the EPA application will take months,” she said.

Cr Sally Townley.

“I don’t understand why … we have amazing consultants, we have amazing staff. Is it that everyone is so overworked that the workload isn’t reasonable and that is why things like this are happening?”

Perhaps reading the mood of the chamber, Mayor Denise Knight departed from traditional meeting procedure to allow successive speakers to speak against the motion.

Then, when Cr Paul Amos began discussing his concerns over the ability for the CCS Project Board to approve variations, possibly in the vicinity of $1.5 million, technical difficulties emerged.

The ensuing silence was as close to a cliffhanger as it gets.

Later, the general manager Steve McGrath and director of Sustainable Development Mick Raby repeatedly assured councillors the Project Board was authorised to make the change because it was a variation that did not exceed the total project cost.

“The staff do not have authority to exceed the total project end cost without reference to the elected council,” Mr McGrath said.

However, Cr Tegan Swan said the speed at which decisions on “big variations” were being made was “rather concerning” and then asked why probity officers appeared to have signed off on the variation request the day before it was formally received.

While staff didn’t directly address the anomaly in the dates put forward by Cr Swan, Mr Raby said the reason for the quick turnaround time was because they had already entered into a design and build contract with Lipman.

“The primary reason was the head contractor had been appointed and were mobilising in accordance with the time frame,” he said.

“Unless there was a disposal option for the acid sulfate soil the project wasn‘t going to proceed and there are delay penalties,” he said.

And the questions kept coming.

Referencing a CCS Project Board meeting in December which identified the project start date in March as ‘high risk’ due to the soils issue, Cr Townley asked why it wasn’t mentioned at the February meeting in which they approved the Lipman contract.

“Why wasn’t it brought up on that night that the situation wasn’t in hand? There was still no site. Someone knew that there was absolutely no possibility that the project would be able to commence (with) this major obstacle in the way. Why didn’t anyone bring that up?”

Mr Raby said there were a number of issues that were deemed high risk and the reason there had been no application to the EPA was because they had no dedicated site.

“The Airport Enterprise Park which has all the space in the world … fell over as an option. There was then an accelerated process through December to Feb, March etc to arrive at a workable alternative option,” he said.

The motion to note the report was lost with Crs Knight, Adendorff and Cecato voting for and Crs Amos, Rhoades, Swan and Townley voting against.