Mod 2 - Design Changes

I support the position outlined by Hunter Bird Observers Club. The proposed development will destroy an internationally important wetland where 22 species of international migratory shorebirds have been recorded. This includes three species, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew Sandpiper and Broad-billed Sandpiper which are listed under the TSC Act as Vulnerable, Endangered and Endangered respectively. Several other threatened species have been recorded there, including Black-necked Stork and Australasian Bittern both of which are listed as Endangered under the TSC Act. Two species of international migratory shorebirds, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Red Knot, and one species of waterfowl, Chestnut Teal, have been observed in significant numbers representing >1% of their total world population, confirming this wetland's status as internationally important.

Objection to the NCIG Rail Flyover: project number MP 06 0009.

* The RFM proposal would destroy an additional area of Swan Pond, on the eastern side of Ash Island (more than was granted in the original approval granted in 2006).
* Swan Pond is critical habitat for many migratory shorebirds, and is one of the largest roosting sites for migratory shorebirds in the Hunter Estuary.
* Migratory shorebirds are listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. A number of species listed as threatened and vulnerable under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, are also present on the site.
* The table below outlines a number of these birds, which the Hunter Bird Observers Club have recorded on a number of site visits since 1999.
* Because migratory shorebirds are listed under the EPBC Act, the NCIG RFM should be deemed a `controlled action' and assessed under the EPBC Act.
Table 1: Migratory birds listed under the EPBC Act 1999 (sighted at Swan Pond)
Common name Proper name Status: Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995
Latham's Snipe Black-tailed Gallinago hardwickii

Balck-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa
Vulnerable
Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica

Common Greenshank Tringa nebularia

Marsh Sandpiper Tringa stagnatilis

Red Knot Calidris canutus

Red-necked Stint Calidris ruficollis

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper Calidris acuminata

Curlew Sandpiper Calidris ferruginea
Endangered
The White-fronted Chat Epthianura albifrons Vulnerable

* The EA does not consider the cumulative impacts of development in and around the Hunter Estuary. This is despite the fact that there has been a steep decline in the numbers of birds that use the Hunter Estuary over the past decade, most likely due to the cumulative impact of development.

* The NCIG RFM would destroy an Endangered Ecological Community of Saltmarsh.

* It would also impact the Green and Golden Bell Frog, which is listed as `vulnerable' under the TSC and EPBC Acts. The Green and Golden Bellfrog lives on land that would be destroyed immediately adjacent to the Kooragang Island Main Line.

* The relocation of Ausgrid power lines to the middle of an island that is used by thousands of birds is outrageous and unacceptable.


* No field sites were undertaken to record and monitor birds. Rather desktop studies of bird populations were relied upon. These do not contain an adequate representation of the actual birds that use the site.

* No offsets are mentioned in the EA.

* The EA does not refer to Swan Pond by its proper name, but rather calls it "additional land on the west". This description is vague and fails to convey the actual areas that would be destroyed in the RFM were approved.

* The EA only provides a description of the habitat to be destroyed in square meters. It is, however, important to indicate the topography of the land that would be destroyed, as it is shallow shoreline with intermittent mudflats, which are used by thousands of waterfowl and migratory shorebirds.

Dear Sir / Madam
Please, please, please take to heart the submission regarding Swan Pond, Koorangang Island, which has been made by Ann Lindsay on behalf of the Hunter Bird Observers
Club. I have only just seen a copy of it, and understand that submissions should be received by tomorrow (01 August).

I would add two points to boost the need for a complete reassessment of the proposed development which would affect Swan Pond.

Firstly, one needs to have a full appreciation of the East Asian Flyway, and the tremendous feats these small birds perform in getting to the north, often northern Siberia, to breed. Human population explosion is severely restricting their ability to continue to migrate and breed. There are international treaties between Australia and Japan, Korea and China to conserve their necessary feeding grounds - but despite this, land reclamation of the extensive mud flats surrounding the Yellow Sea continue to go ahead. The Yellow Sea is a staging stop for "refuelling" in the massive effort to fly to Siberia. How can Australians criticise the Koreans and Chinese if we deliberately destroy such an important feeding ground in NSW? We let ourselves down!

Secondly, of course, humans are part of Nature, and so are the birds. Their decline and stressed conditions are really indicative of the broader threat to biodiversity. When our
biodiversity is threatened, everything and everyone are threatened. Planners should not be considering if further encroachment on valuable areas is acceptable; each case really should indicate a need to expand and protect such a valuable asset!

Of course business and manufacturing must thrive - but expansion must be guided by a very disciplined approach to planning, that recognises and rejects short-term gain which
accelerates long-term loss, which cumulatively spells long-term disaster.

Yours truly
Barrie Ayres

Dear Sir/Madam/Committee,
I write to voice my strenuous objection to this proposal.
I am also horrified at the duplicitous nature of the wording of the proposal.
Hidden in it is the awful fact that it would destroy one of the best remaining wetland and tidal mudflat habitats for many species of migrating waders on the Eastern Coast of Australia.
As the Department should be aware, because of the threatened or vulnerable status of a whole suite of shorebirds which undertake an annual migration from Siberia to winter in Australia, many of their essential feeding grounds have been protected by a series of international treaties.
This is a personal plea, so I need not spell out the details, which I now see have been admirably set out by the Conservation Officer of the Hunter Bird Observers' Club, Ann Lindsey. I would like to endorse her submission.
Since coming back to NSW in 1975 I have watched with alarm the decline in wader numbers on Kooragang Is. and the area around the Stockton Bridge as a variety of industrial projects [some of them no doubt essential] has eaten into their feeding grounds.
I am not convinced from what I can learn that this project is essential, nor that any need that it would meet cannot be met by a less damaging location.
I urge you to reject it.
Yours truly,
Ted Nixon

I am against this modification (MP 06_0009 MOD2) and support the position outlined by Hunter Bird Observers Club.

In support of HBOC's submission

I Grant Brosie, fully support the Hunter Bird Observers Club's submission in regards to the planned rail flyover on Ash Island. The total disregard for Swan Pond's bird life is disgraceful.

I support the Hunter Bird Observers Club's submission in regards to the planned Ash Island rail flyover.

I fully support the Hunter Bird Observers Club in regards to this matter.

I object to the NCIG CET Rail Flyover Modification.
My reasons for this are given in the submission from the Hunter Bird Observers Club Inc. (HBOC) against Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group Coal Export Terminal Rail Flyover Modification Stage 2F
(MP 06_0009 MOD 2) June 2012 who I whole heartly suport as a private individual.

I support the position outlined by Hunter Bird Observers Club. The proposed development will destroy an internationally important wetland where 22 species of international migratory shorebirds have been recorded. This includes three species, Black-tailed Godwit, Curlew Sandpiper and Broad-billed Sandpiper which are listed under the TSC Act as Vulnerable, Endangered and Endangered respectively. Several other threatened species have been recorded there, including Black-necked Stork and Australasian Bittern both of which are listed as Endangered under the TSC Act. Two species of international migratory shorebirds, Sharp-tailed Sandpiper and Red Knot, and one species of waterfowl, Chestnut Teal, have been observed in significant numbers representing >1% of their total world population, confirming this wetland's status as internationally important.

I support the position outlined by Hunter Bird Observers Club. The proposed development will destroy an internationally important wetland where 22 species of international migratory shorebirds have been recorded.

I am writing to express my agreement with the Hunter Bird Observers Club's submission.

Dear Sir / Madam
(MP 06_0009 MOD 2)

Further to my email of this morning on the subject - written in some haste as, even though now an octogenarian, I was off to work. Upon arrival back home this evening, I have found the following information, circulated by email by BirdLife Australia, of which I am a member. (BirdLife is the new national ornithological organisation).

From this article, the importance of my reference to the East Asia Flyway, as a macro consideration to influence any decision about Swan Pond, is clear.

"A report commissioned by the IUCN warns of the imminent extinctions of migratory shorebirds and collapse of ecological systems in East and South East Asian tidal flats, especially around the Yellow Sea.

The report shows that ecological systems are collapsing, with populations of migratory waterbirds declining rapidly, linked to the disappearance and degradation of migratory staging posts. The report identified six key areas in the Yellow Sea where the crucial threat is coastal land reclamation: between 2000 and 2010, more than 41% of the area of tidal mudflats was reclaimed.

Waterbirds that depend on the Asian intertidal habitats of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are the world's most threatened migratory birds -- their rates of population decline are among the world's highest. At least 24 are approaching extinction: the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, with declines of 26% per year, could be extinct within a decade.
International cooperation and effective environmental safeguards are vital.

We need your help to encourage the Australian Government to support the motion `Conservation of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway intertidal zone, with particular reference to the Yellow Sea and its threatened birds' at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Korea in September."

Yours truly
Barrie Ayres

I am writing on behalf of the 450 or so members of Birding NSW [Field Ornithologists Club of NSW] to voice our objections to this proposal, a modification of an earlier one.
Unfortunately, although the language of the Environmental Assessment supporting the proposal does not admit it, the 'modification' would go a long way toward destroying,
Swan Pond, a site of international importance as a feeding and roosting ground of a whole suite of migratory wading [or 'shore'] birds.

Migratory shorebirds are listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and as such are of `national environmental significance'.

Of the 20 odd species of migrant waders that frequent the area threatened by this proposal, three species are of particular concern, as they are on the Endangered or Vulnerable Species List.

These are the Curlew Sandpiper, the Broad-billed Sandpiper, and the Black-tailed Godwit.
[If I may be excused a personal note: as a teenager in Victoria I watched Curlew Sandpipers in their thousands on Mud Is. in Port Phillip Bay. Now the numbers one can find in N.S.W. are in the handfuls, and Swan Pond is a prime location for birdwatchers hunting for them. Their decline has been calamitous.This has been documented in surveys conducted over the last thirty years or so by the Australian Wader Study Group. This is why, of course, that international agreements have been made to protect them and their kind, such as the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention).]

Swan Pond is of critical importance to the conservation of these shorebirds, as well as some species of waterfowl and land birds such as the [vulnerable] White-fronted Chat, which is heavily dependent on coastal salt marshland.
[Incidentally it is virtually extinct now in the Sydney Basin.]
Its unique qualities as a brackish wetland, with exposure of large tracts of mudflat, have been admirably documented in the submission to your Department by the Conservation Officer of the Hunter Bird Observers' Club, Ann Lindsey.
I would like to endorse her submission.

I am not convinced from what I can learn that this project is essential, nor that any need that it would meet cannot be met by a much less damaging location.
I would ask the Department to put this point of view to the proponent.

Acceptance of the proposal in its present form would be calamitous for the thousands of birds that regularly inhabit Swan Pond.

In conclusion, Birding NSW supports the Hunter Bird Observers' Club in its request that the NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure reject this Rail Flyover Modification.

Yours truly,
C.E.V. [Ted] Nixon
Acting Conservation Officer,
Birding NSW

I completely oppose this application and fully support the submission made by the Hunter Bird Observers Club

Re: Objection to the NCIG Rail Flyover: project number MP 06 0009.

Biodiversity will be significantly impacted by this proposal:

* The NCIG RFM would destroy an Endangered Ecological Community of Saltmarsh.

* It would also impact the Green and Golden Bell Frog, which is listed as `vulnerable' under the TSC and EPBC Acts. The Green and Golden Bellfrog lives on land that would be destroyed immediately adjacent to the Kooragang Island Main Line.

* The RFM proposal would destroy an additional area of Swan Pond, on the eastern side of Ash Island (more than was granted in the original approval granted in 2006).

* Swan Pond is critical habitat for many migratory shorebirds, and is one of the largest roosting sites for migratory shorebirds in the Hunter Estuary.

* Migratory shorebirds are listed under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. A number of species listed as threatened and vulnerable under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995, are also present on the site.

* The table below outlines a number of these birds, which the Hunter Bird Observers Club have recorded on a number of site visits since 1999.

Recommendation: Because migratory shorebirds are listed under the EPBC Act, the NCIG RFM should be deemed a `controlled action' and assessed under the EPBC Act.

Table 1: Migratory birds listed under the EPBC Act 1999 (sighted at Swan Pond)

Latham's Snipe Black-tailed, Gallinago hardwickii

Balck-tailed Godwit, Limosa limosa, Vulnerable

Bar-tailed Godwit, Limosa lapponica

Common Greenshank, Tringa nebularia

Marsh Sandpiper , Tringa stagnatilis

Red Knot, Calidris canutus

Red-necked Stint, Calidris ruficollis

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Calidris acuminata

Curlew Sandpiper, Calidris ferruginea, Endangered

The White-fronted Chat, Epthianura albifrons, Vulnerable

Recommendation: This 'upgrade' must be assessed as one impact that feeds into the cumulative impacts of all the coal developments in the area.

Currently, the EA does not consider the cumulative impacts of development in and around the Hunter Estuary. This is despite the fact that there has been a steep decline in the numbers of birds that use the Hunter Estuary over the past decade, most likely due to the cumulative impact of development.

The EA is unsatisfactory and does not provide the level of detail needed and should be resubmitted after further studies have been completed.

* The relocation of Ausgrid power lines to the middle of an island that is used by thousands of birds provides a clear risk to these species and further impact studies are required, with other options put forward.

* No field sites were undertaken to record and monitor birds. Rather desktop studies of bird populations were relied upon. These do not contain an adequate representation of the actual birds that use the site.

* No offsets are mentioned in the EA.

* The EA does not refer to Swan Pond by its proper name, but rather calls it "additional land on the west". This description is vague and fails to convey the actual areas that would be destroyed in the RFM were approved.

* The EA only provides a description of the habitat to be destroyed in square meters. It is, however, important to indicate the topography of the land that would be destroyed, as it is shallow shoreline with intermittent mudflats, which are used by thousands of waterfowl and migratory shorebirds.

Please refer to the attached submission.

Please accept this submission (attached) from the Hunter Community Environment Centre objecting to the NCIG Rail Flyover Modification.

Regards,

Annika Dean

My letter objecting to the proposed rail flyover modifcation is being sent by mail. I consider the assessment of impacts on Swan Pond, the wetland immediately west of the Kooragang Island Main Line, to be inadequate. I urge you to consider alternative rail alignments that do not impact on Swan Pond. If the proposal is approved, compensatory shorebird habitat and saltmarsh must be created to offset the impacts of this development on Swan Pond.