Deadline dilemma: Mount Cotton superquarry must prove compliance or cease

One of the state’s newest super quarries has started operating days before a 10-year deadline while nearby residents await confirmation of compliance tests.

Barro Group’s Mount Cotton site on Mount Cotton Rd. Picture: Google

The state’s newest hard rock super quarry has started operating, days before a 10-year deadline expires on Thursday, July 25.

Barro Group’s new Mount Cotton super quarry had until Thursday, July 25, to start extracting its hard rock before it would need to reapply to Redland City Council for a new, or extended, development approval.

Under its council approval, the super quarry can mine one million tonnes of greywacke a year, one of the main components of concrete.

Redland council compliance officers have visited the site since the new quarry started operating on July 15.

The Mount Cotton greywacke quarry was given the right to expand with the deadline for operations to start on July 25, 2024. Picture: Contributed

For the quarry to continue to operate it must meet a range of conditions set by the state government in 2013.

Conditions included managing noise, controlling silica dust, monitoring blasting, ensuring safety and meeting strict environmental regulations, along with building a covered and noise-proof conveyor belt to move the mined rock from the bottom of a valley to a processing and crushing factory at the top of the Mount Cotton ridge line.

It would also have to build a koala wildlife tunnel to allow onsite koalas to move from one side of the quarry to the other, which was a stipulated state government condition.

If all those conditions were not met the super quarry would be found to be in breach of its development approval and could be fined or lose its rights to continue operating.

The front gate of the Barro Group’s Mount Cotton quarry. Picture: Judith Kerr

The super quarry replaced Barro’s existing Mount Cotton facility which previously supplied materials to the construction industry across greater Brisbane area.

It was scaled back two years ago when the rock in that area of the mine was depleted.

The new super quarry, almost 10 times the size of the previous site, was given approval to operate after a protracted legal case between Redland council and the Barro Group in the Planning and Environment Court.

Barro won a three-year extension to its council planning approval in July 2019, with Judge Richard Jones overruling the council’s extension refusal.

Further extensions of two years were given by former planning ministers Cameron Dick and Steven Miles, stretching the deadline for Barro to start operating to July this year.

Mount Cotton residents Anthony and Kerstin Moloney’s front yard is less than 200m from the new quarry site.

Redland council said it was advised in June that operations would start on July 15.

“Council conducted a site inspection at the quarry on July 11 and is currently reviewing the relevant approvals,” a council spokesman said.

“The extension to the quarry was issued under Ministerial approval MC19/465.

“Responsibility with respect to compliance matters falls to both the Queensland government and Redland City Council and both levels of government are responsible for enforcing conditions relevant to their regulatory jurisdiction.”

The Department of the Environment Science and Innovation is also yet to confirm the operations have met all the stipulated state and council conditions.

Mount Cotton resident and member of the Barro Quarry community reference group, Anthony Moloney, said the facility still did not have a conveyor belt or koala and wildlife underpass.

“The plans have changed dramatically and now, instead of a silent covered conveyor belt up the side of the mountain, there will be heavy trucks moving the greywacke which is very noisy and dusty,” Mr Moloney said.

“The impacts from this super quarry are going to be even worse for the local residents, some of whom live less than 500m from the extraction site.

“In more than 10 years, the quarry has not met any of the fundamental conditions and hasn’t even been able to build a wildlife corridor, so what confidence have we got that Barro will ensure the safety of our families?”

Barro Group was contacted for comment.

Originally published as Deadline dilemma: Mount Cotton superquarry must prove compliance or cease