Councillor doesn’t want to see repeat of the 1980s Mt Etna protests

In the end, Livingstone Shire Council didn’t have to make a choice between approving a major quarry expansion or protecting a dwindling bat species.

An application by a hard-rock quarry near Mt Etna to increase extraction from 100,000 to one million tonnes annually has been approved by Livingstone Shire Council after it investigated its potential impacts on a vulnerable bat species.

An application by a hard-rock quarry near Mt Etna to increase extraction from 100,000 to one million tonnes annually has been approved by Livingstone Shire Council after it investigated its potential impacts on a vulnerable bat species.

Cr Rhodes Watson, who inspected The Caves Quarry mine site with a council officer, told a council meeting on January 21 that he was satisfied a nearby Ghost Bat colony would be safe from impacts of extra blasting and noise coming from the new works.

Cr Watson said the bats actually live on a different hill to the quarry site.

Mount Etna at The Caves.

He said seismic readings at the bat cave showed the blasting would have less impact than what was recorded coming from a nearby train corridor.

The population of Ghost Bats in the Mount Etna Caves National Park and surrounds was once regarded as one of the largest in Australia in the 1980s however, mining (by a another company) and other land use in the surrounding area is believed to have contributed to its decline with population estimates now in the range of just 25 bats down from 450.

Activist Jeff Simmons opposes the development of Mount Etna, near Rockhampton in Queensland in 1979.

Environmentalists in the 1980s and 1990s held protests at the mine to try and protect the bats and Cr Watson said he didn’t want to see a repeat of that situation.

“This was a very important matter mainly for the people who had fought to keep the bats safe back in 1980s and 1990s,” he said

“It is very dear to me because I remember covering the protests as a journalist, and even though there was a bit of tongue and cheek that it (the current proposal) was nowhere near Yeppoon, it was still very important to the people of The Caves.

“It was an environmental disaster previously, but it is not a worry now.”

Cr Pat Eastwood said the expansion of the quarry was an important step in providing material required to assist in the rapid residential growth of the shire’s northern corridor.

The council officer who inspected the mine site said the proposed 60 hectare quarry expansion was actually taking the blasting further away from the bat colony.

The site is bound by the North Coast Rail Line (and Bruce Highway) to the south-west, rural land to the west, north-west and north, with Mount Etna Caves National Park adjoining the site to the northeast.

A report to council said controlled blasting would be undertaken approximately every three months while extraction of material from the operational quarry area would be carried out by diggers and excavators.

There will be crushing and screening of material to produce various aggregates gravel and road base and onsite stockpiling of material.

Councillors voted unanimously to approve the quarry expansion.

Originally published as Councillor doesn’t want to see repeat of the 1980s Mt Etna protests