Hexham Relief Roads

This is a submission against the proposed Hexham Relief Roads development.

The proposal must be rejected due to:

- impacts on the Hunter Estuary and Hexham wetlands. These wetlands are of vital importance to threatened species and internationally recognised migratory birds. Species richness in the Hunter Estuary has been in decline for some years, and unless action is taken to prevent further degradation of the wetlands, species will be lost.

- impacts on the global climate. The sole purpose of the Hexham Relief Roads proposal is to facilitate an increase in coal exports from Newcastle. The project is part of a larger plan to near triple Hunter coal exports up to 300 million tonnes per annum. The greenhouse pollution from 300 million tonnes of coal would be approximately 840 million tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution per annum. This is approximately 150% of Australia's current net domestic greenhouse emissions.

Clearly, this represents a major impact on the global climate, and and the Hexham Relief Roads project must not be approved.

I urge the Planning Department to, for once, place the interests of the community at large ahead of the interests of coal mining corporations. Prove to me that you can do it. I dare you.

Hexham rail roads submission

Cathy Burgess 10th September 2012

I wish to oppose the Hexham rail project and put forward the following reasons for my objection.
Please note I am objecting to this submission. I would like to make this clear
It seems that once again there has been no consideration of cumulative impacts. Until cumulative impacts are taken into account then the EIS means nothing.

Some of my concerns for this project apart from the above serious concern are...

Noise modelling fails to consider major residents.

The EIS appears to only consider noise in the Hexham area from the project. Why wasn't Wallsend also considered. With the Swamp being a flat open area, the distance across the swamp is only short and the prevailing wind NW it is highly likely that the Wallsend district will encounter considerable noise.

The scope of the noise study only made an assessment of the potential airborne noise during the construction phase. What happens once the project is in full operation

There is no indication in the EIS that a gradient has been incorporated in the design for the purpose of noise minimisation.

The conclusion in 9.5.2 that no noise management or mitigation is required would seem to be a product of a series of underestimates rather than the likely realistic situation.

Vibration
The EIS appears to only consider vibration in the Hexham area from the project. This is unreasonable as there are major population areas on the southern side of the Hexham Swamp, Wallsend/Shortland.

The scope of the vibration study only made an assessment of the potential airborne vibration during the construction phase. Why again was the vibration study only during the construction phase & not during operation. The fact is the construction phase can only happen during work hours while the operation will be 24hours. Annoyance vibration is extremely difficult to live with in a residence particularly at night.

Coal Dust
It is very well documented that coal dust and emissions from trains is a serious source of pollution of the Lower Hunter environment.
Some of the issues are:
* Top of train load.
o Trains with exposed loads are subject to having wind remove dust, small particles and lumps.
o Train speed is maximum 80kph loaded.
o Prevailing wind may give an actual wind speed much higher.
o Trains commonly load coal above the height of the sides.
* Top of train empty
o Coal and coal dust remaining in the wagon after unloading dries out rapidly.
o The low pressure zone in the wagon plus wind turbulence blows / sucks coal dust and particles from the empty wagon.
o Empty wagons travel at 100kph
* Bottom dump doors
o Hunter valley coal trains use wagons with trap doors in the bottom. These doors wear or get out of adjustment and fail to fully seal.
* Recycled from the track
o Dust and coal that falls from trains gets stirred up when subsequent trains pass by thus putting past material in the air again and again and again...


Contamination
The site does not seem to be sealed from the subsoil by a barrier and the site does not appear to be fully bunded.
By way of example Coal particle will infiltrate the ballast, fuel and oil will soak into the soil and coal dust will blow into and settle into the swamp. The EIS does not address these issues either in terms of correcting the contamination or by explaining how the issues will be addressed and the impact of the addressing procedure on other factors like noise, traffic volumes and cumulative impacts.

Traffic and Transport
* The public transport would seem to grossly underestimate the bus and train services in the Hexham area. There is no recognition of School bus services or intrastate and interstate coaches. There is no recognition of the XPT train services.
* No patronage or patronage projections figures for public transport are provided.
* The existing traffic conditions and volumes also do not represent the current position.
* By description in the EIS most of the extra 380 trips would be heavy and very heavy vehicles.
* With a major section of roadway at choke point this additional traffic will have a critical impact.
* The EIS discussion in my view seriously underestimated the train movements.
* To suggest that the passenger train services will remain at 105 through to 2024 would seem to be a gross underestimation. With large population increases west of Hexham and greatly increased vehicle numbers and operating cost I believe that passenger train numbers will at least double.

The rail bypass proposal of Newcastle suburban areas is not considered
* Will the proposal hinder the rail bypass proposal and its extention to the South Arm south bank port side rail proposal?

Passenger train services using this section of the main line have not been responsibly considered.
* It is very clear that there will be significant need to increase the number of passenger trains passing through Hexham however the document states that the passenger train numbers will in 2014 be 105 and in 2024 still be 105. How does this happen. This is not realistic or a reasonable assessment of the situation as the population growth is likely to be increased by 100,000 or close to double the existing population served by the rail line.

Hexham Station not considered.
Hexham station should be a very important station because
* There should be another station between Hexham and Shortland. This extra station was part of a plan for a national park and tourism for Hexham Swamp and other nearby areas.
* Hexham is the station for Raymond Terrace and all points northward along the Pacific Highway. It is also the first station on the Highway from the Cessnock and Kurri areas. These areas are to undergo major population increases. Hexham Station lends itself to be a major park and ride facility.
* Hexham station is adjacent to considerable industrial activities including the QN facility.

To cope with Hexham Stations growing needs the design, layout and length of the station should be assessed with the view of carrying out a major upgrade at the time of the other works. A four car length island platform serviced by a lift and appropriate amenities should provide the type of facilities required. The track in the area should be realigned in the interests of efficiency and to enable the lengthening of the platform.

Freight train movements would seem to be underestimated
The movement of freight by rail is increasing significantly both in train numbers and in freight volume. This growth and the needs of the freight trains would seem to have not been taken into account adequately.
Major work is underway and planned to allow more freight to move between Sydney and the Lower Hunter.

The soon to be released Newcastle Port Master Plan will also add considerable pressure to the road and rail transport requirements of the Hexham area.

The Port of Newcastle has a recently approved new grain terminal. This will increase freight movement through Hexham. The newly approved Mayfield port side development will also generate considerable freight movement. The rail freight volumes from these and similar projects does not seem to have been considered and the identified need provided for.

Diesel fumes
The World Health Organisation now considers diesel to be a serious carcinogen.
The five relief roads will commonly result in 15 diesel powered locomotives being parked idling then in sets of 3 using full power to move off in a very confined area of about 2 ha.
Apart from the potential harm to public health this must surely be a very serious OH&S issue for train crew and support staff.
The EIS makes no reference to this major risk with only scant comment about diesel fumes in the air quality section.

Train maintenance, service and inspection.
The EIS and the comments made by staff at the HBC briefing does not make a clear explanation about the length of stay of the train sets in the relief roads.

The document states the relief roads are necessary for sequencing, arrival timing and queuing. Clearly this could be for minutes or hours.

There is also reference to parking up of train during periods of shutdown, derailments and other longer term interruptions to train movements. Clearly this is durations of long hours and even days.

It is not going to be uncommon for crews to leave their locos, for crews to be changed, for technicians to inspect issues or attempt urgent repairs and for the attendance of emergency services.

The EIS makes no comment as to how this movement of people take place.

The EIS provides no proof that the ecosystem will not suffer significantly

The value of the rail road project site does not seem to have been considered. By way of example NSW Fisheries in 1999 estimated the Value of the Hexham Swamp for fisheries habitat alone to be worth $15,400 per ha per annum. That's a lot of money and a real cost that should be part of the projects cost benefit analysis.

The impact of the project would seem not to have been considered for the people who adjoin the area and in particular for the greater localities of Wallsend, Marylands, Shortland and similar.

Monitoring
Newcastle & the Lower Hunter need & deserve greater monitoring of the health impacts from air pollution in particular. Until this is addressed both for this project as well as others then the community cannot accept more pollution.

Environment Protection Licence
This project no doubt will require the project to obtain and Environment Protection Licence from the EPA.
I would argue that the proponent must provide an Environmental Protection Licence for the Construction AND operational phase of the project / operational site before a determination is made by Planning.

Cumulative Impacts
I started & I want to finish with cumulative impacts. I believe this is so crucial for all new projects, the Hunter's lungs are starting to look like an old smokers.
The Hexham swamp, Hunter River, Ash Island, the surrounding areas and the total catchment is highly important to one of New South Wales larger and very important estuaries.
Major activities like the rail roads proposed by this project can impact heavily on this fragile environment.
Houses, factories and man made structures can be adapted, relocated and in other ways constructed to meet or resist the challenges posed by the elements.
Wildlife, ecology, micro climates and the like are far less able to adapt to the pressures of development.
The ability of all the aspects of nature to relocate and in fact survive is impacted heavily by developments encroaching on to their area. This encroachment can be by physically consuming the land as this rail road project does. The encroachment can also be by the change to the natural environment and corridors caused by pollution, structures, changes to drainage, noise, vibration and air quality.
I do not consider this EIS has reasonably examined the likely changes and in particular the cumulative impacts from all the projects in the extended locality.

Yours
Cathy Burgess
9 Hereford St
Stockton 2295

I have made political donations but not $1000 or more over the past 2 years

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