The route the N.S.W. Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) intends to use for the Pacific Highway Upgrade, Bulahdelah – Option E – is an internal deviation; it is not a bypass in any sense of the word. The through-Bulahdelah section would be adjacent to the residential area and schools on the lower foot of the Alum Mountain, destroying the Alum Mountain Park and surrounds in Bulahdelah’s eastern sector, the cultural heart of Bulahdelah. The new section of highway, although initially catering for only four lanes of traffic, would be six-lanes-plus in width and would connect with the existing highway in northern Bulahdelah. With this route, a massive northern interchange would also be within Bulahdelah.
Yet the ‘Project’ clause of the N.S.W. Minister for Planning’s Schedule 1 Project Approval, which was given under Section 75J of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 (the Act), is for (bold typeface added for emphasis):-
A dual carriageway highway bypass to be constructed to the east of Bulahdelah, starting approximately 4.5 kilometres south of Bulahdelah and connecting to the existing highway approximately 4 kilometres to the north of the town. The project includes interchanges to the south and north of the town, allowing access to Bulahdelah.
With the exception of the southern (pre Bulahdelah) section, in approving the Project criteria in Application No: 05_0044 (approval File No: N99/00157) the Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, has not approved what the RTA actually proposes for the Bulahdelah section of the Pacific Highway Upgrade; he has approved RTA propaganda.
And the processing of the Option E route has entailed the use of dishonesty from its inception, resulting in an oppressive situation which should not occur in any democratic country.
The following is an abbreviated account of the RTA’s route location history and selection procedure at Bulahdelah:-
In the second half of the 1980s I was shown – and held in my hands – a large map which had been published and distributed by the Roads and Traffic Authority (at that time probably called the Department of Main Roads). The map was of the Bulahdelah Bypass and displayed one route only. It was to the west of Bulahdelah in the approximate location of Option A, with the alignment of its northern end being through the “pine forest” at the O’Sullivan’s Retreat restaurant.
Additionally, purchasers and owners of property affected by said bypass were personally contacted by the RTA.
In 1990, the Pacific Highway (State Highway No. 10) Bulahdelah – Coolongolook Deviation Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) strongly indicated that the existing highway alignment at Bulahdelah would be used for the upgrade.
When the RTA and the then PPK Environment and Infrastructure – PPK (now – and henceforth in this post – Parsons Brinkerhoff) arrived in Bulahdelah in the year 2000, previous RTA activities had caused many residents to believe that the upgrade would be to the west of Bulahdelah (and the alignment of the southern end of the Bulahdelah to Coolongolook section of the upgrade was consistent with this). Some others may have deduced from the Bulahdelah to Coolongolook EIS that the current section of highway would be used. Moreover, most Bulahdelah residents were aware of at least some of the Alum Mountain’s values and did not expect that area to be even seriously considered, let alone advocated.
In March, 2000, the local community received a brochure (Newsletter 1) titled: Bulahdelah Upgrade of the pacific [sic] highway [sic]. Inside was a blurred orange blob over a hotchpotch of crude lines purported to be a map of Bulahdelah. On the same page, the RTA stated:-
· Study Area – To commence investigations a broad study area is being examined (refer map). This area will be refined as more information is gathered. … [Note: no route options were presented in this newsletter and the study area was – Bulahdelah.]
· Upgrading Options – There is currently no preferred route for the proposal, and the RTA will consider potential routes both east and west of Bulahdelah, as well as the possibility of upgrading the existing Pacific Highway through the town. The selection of a preferred route will be based on community issues, and environmental, engineering and economic considerations. [Note: to knowledgeable community members, this, with its ‘east of Bulahdelah’ and ‘environmental, engineering and economic considerations’, excluded the Alum Mountain.]
· Environmental Assessment Process – … Throughout all stages of the project there will be extensive consultation with the Bulahdelah community and Government agencies.
Studies to assist in the development of route options include a range of biological, traffic, geotechnical and social considerations, with several field studies commencing shortly. … The EIS will then document all potential impacts of the project, in terms of traffic, the community and the environment.
The planning process for the study is shown over page, with important opportunities for community involvement highlighted. [Note: with ‘extensive consultation with the Bulahdelah community’ and ‘biological, …, geotechnical and social considerations’, to knowledgeable citizens this too meant that the Alum Mountain would not be seriously considered as highway location.]
There were no ‘opportunities for community involvement highlighted’ over the page. Said ‘opportunities’ were listed under the heading ‘Have Your Say and Get Involved’. They were: ‘being placed on the study mailing list to receive newsletters’; ‘Contacting [sic] the study team’ on a toll free telephone number; attending public displays; and the ungrammatical, unintelligible and unenlightening phrase ‘nominating for the community focus group’.
Most Bulahdelah residents were, at that time (most still are), unfamiliar with the term ‘focus group’ and the extremely uneducated ‘nominating for the community focus group’ phraseology failed to inform. There was not ‘extensive consultation with the Bulahdelah community’ during this – or any other – stage of the project.
With ‘nominating for the community focus group’ being the only clue that there was to be an integrated group of community members and, although a toll free telephone number was provided, no stated means of participating in this nominating mystery, Newsletter 1 of March, 2000, failed to notify the community as to how to participate in the consultation process. (Community consultation was, at that time, a requirement of the Act.)
The first focus group meeting was held on 10th April, 2000. Community members who had not joined the focus group were barred from entering focus group meetings. While the community had been shown only a blurred orange blob indicating that Bulahdelah would be the study area for the Bulahdelah upgrade, focus group members, some of a character which fitted very with the RTA’s loutish ‘Have Your Say and Get Involved’ (Mouth Off and Interfere) caption and some others with – or with relations with – a pecuniary interest in the location of the upgrade, were secretively involved in selecting and eliminating potential route options.
It was not until the delivery of Newsletter 2, in late July, 2000, that the community, mostly unaware of the existence of the focus group, let alone that its members were representing them, was shown any route options at all. They were: Option A, a western route with an estimated cost of $145 million; Option B, also to the west but with its northern and southern ends close to the township – estimated cost $161 million; Option C, following the alignment of the existing highway – $165 million; Option D, its southern section following the alignment of the existing highway but then deviating in an easterly direction to the foot of the Alum Mountain – cost estimation $150 million; and Option E, through the foot of the Alum Mountain and the Alum Mountain Park in Bulahdelah’s only area of cultural and heritage value – estimated cost $149 million.
On the front page of Newsletter 2, under the heading What must the upgrade achieve? the RTA had stated:-
The upgrade of the highway must provide a safer environment for everyone, reduce travel costs for users, incorporate community issues and minimise impacts on the environment. This option must:
· [1] achieve safe driving conditions for travel speeds of 110 kilometres per hour in rural areas, 80 kilometres per hour in urban areas;
· [2] connect the new highway to the town;
· [3] have roadway for capacity for traffic volumes 20 years after opening;
· [4] maintain access to all properties;
· [5] maintain operations during flood conditions;
· [6] provide safe local traffic, pedestrian and cyclist facilities;
· [7] complement the existing community and landscape features;
· [8] examine ways to ensure noise levels meet Environment Protection Authority guidelines; and
· [9] achieve community satisfaction with the development of the route.
Although the community was totally unprepared for Options D and E, with the Alum Mountain’s history and its cultural (including environmental) values plus (but not necessarily limited to) bulleted statements 7, 8 and 9, most residents did not believe that the mountain would be seriously considered as suitable for a highway location. And according to Newsletter 2, Option E was the cheapest option by $4 million. That the Alum Mountain is also known to be prone to mass movement and boulder and rock falls was yet another reason for the community to believe that the RTA would not proceed with either Option D or E.
Not much over a month after the delivery of Newsletter 2, while the community (still barred from entering focus group meetings) was stunned/disbelieved that the Alum Mountain could actually be under threat, the RTA conducted the Value Management Workshop (VMW). At that time the community did not know what the VMW was – many residents still don’t – or that it was taking place.
Apart from a (much later) cavalier re-examination of Option C, which was not for altruistic purposes and was solely due to acquaintanceship between the then Minister for Roads, Carl Scully, and a Bulahdelah member of the Labor Party, the RTA refused to consider using any route other than Option E after the VMW. Yet continued to keep the community in the dark as to the VMW and its outcome: ‘that Option E should go forward for further consideration and refinement’. Furthermore, when community members who had found out that Option E was the option preferred by all VMW attendees attempted to alert the community as to that fact, the RTA, fallaciously ascribing a sole meaning to the words ‘preferred option’ – that of the RTA’s ‘Preferred Option’ jargon in which the ‘Preferred Option’ is that chosen (on advice from the RTA) by the N.S.W. Minister for Roads as the route which will be used, accused them of, “Rumour mongering.”
The VMW outcome was not officially announced until December, 2000. This was at a public meeting organised by Focus Group members, not, despite their presence at said meeting, the RTA or Parsons Brinkerhoff. The meeting was horrific, with:
o shock/bewilderment/outrage/fury displayed by community members;
o one of the Focus Group members who had attended the VMW (where all groups present, according to the RTA, ‘signed off’ on Option E) hysterically imploring that the highway be ‘left where it is’;
o another VMW Focus Group representative (whose home is not within the residential area) telling Bulahdelah residents that Option E would be better than Option A because, with Option A, “Traffic noise would be reduced to a dull roar,” and Bulahdelah would revert to being, “A quiet little village,” or ‘backwater’; and
o an Aboriginal citizen being abused by a furious Bulahdelah resident who, in front of all present, and while the Focus Group, the RTA and PPK did nothing to stop his attack, pointed his index finger at her as a Kadaicha would point the bone, all the time shouting and shaking with rage as he told her that he knew of Aboriginal sites on the Alum Mountain.
On top of the above, one VMW Focus Group representative introduced his account of the VMW and its outcome with, “I’m not here to tell you what went on at the VMW.” As relating what occurred at the VMW was what he was meant to be doing, presumably he meant that he was not going to say what really went on at the VMW:-
At the VMW, participants from Bulahdelah were placed with sub-groups of participants who were not from the area. Bulahdelah participants were four members of the focus group (one being the nephew-in-law of a property owner with a pecuniary interest in Option E) and the NSW Police representative (son-in-law of said property owner). (An employee of Parsons Brinkerhoff later claimed that when the western options were displayed none of the Bulahdelah attendees would even look at them.)
Only sixteen VMW participants were not officially with the RTA, Parsons Brinkerhoff or ACVM (the Australian Centre for Value Management). Of those sixteen:
§ four were the abovementioned biased and grossly irresponsible Bulahdelah residents;
§ three were mere councillors (laypersons) from Great Lakes Council, which, with the RTA’s promise to deal with council’s long-term neglect of drainage in the south-eastern section of Bulahdelah’s residential area, had – and still has – a pecuniary interest in Option E;
§ one, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) representative, was in an RTA created and funded position with NPWS; and
§ another was representing the Aboriginal Lands Council from Karuah which had – and still has – a pecuniary interest in Option E.
Of the remaining seven of the said sixteen participants, one, the State Forests’ representative, was only in part-time attendance. (State Forests’ responses to the EIS show that State Forests now considers that a western route would be preferable to Option E.)
Note: For the past six years or so Bulahdelah residents who have been involved in battling against the use of Option E believed that that left only six disinterested parties in full-time attendance at the VMW. However, earlier this year it was found that the Environment Protection Authority’s representative at the VMW has the same – very distinctive – name as that of a current RTA employee.
The VMW Report clearly shows that the RTA had a prior determination to use Option E and that suppression and reversals of the truth regarding Options A and E also contributed to its outcome:-
In the Risk Assessment for Option E (page 37 VMW Report), the ‘probability or likelihood’ of occurrence of ‘Identified Hazards’ received ‘high, medium or low’ categorisations. ‘Identified Hazard’ no. 6 was: ‘[if] Aboriginal sites are located within the footprint’. The ‘probability’ rating for this was ‘low – medium’. Yet the RTA was already aware of at least one Aboriginal site within the footprint and had documentation as to the fact that there could be more:-
· Aboriginal artefact scatters in the path of Option E were recorded in the Indigenous Cultural Heritage Component – A Report to PPK Environment & Infrastructure Pty Ltd for the NSW RTA, which was published in May, 2000, two months before the VMW.
· The Bulahdelah to Coolongolook EIS states that artefacts which may have come from the Alum Mountain were found during said EIS.
In the Initial Option Assessment the options were not allocated identical assessment criteria and were treated in an inequitable manner.
In the Option Evaluation five Option A and E Evaluation Criteria were given extremely inaccurate assessments, resulting in false Assessed Criteria Rankings for those options i.e.:-
1. Assessed Criteria B was: ‘Minimising adverse social and amenity impacts (including noise, loss of local connectivity and area segregation)’.
There are no community facilities in the Option A locality. Option A, which: would have no social or amenity impacts; would reduce noise levels in Bulahdelah; and would not cause so-called ‘loss of local connectivity or area segregation’ was rated F (fair) and allocated 30 points. Option E, which would have major acoustic impacts on Bulahdelah and would obliterate, mutilate and pollute public open spaces of long-established social usage, would maximise adverse social and amenity impacts etc. was rated VG (very good) and given 60 points.
2. Assessed Criteria C was: ‘Minimising both natural and cultural environmental impacts’.
Option A, which would be in an environmentally insignificant area with more than ample corridor width to allow for impact avoidance (and with no non-indigenous heritage whatsoever) was rated P (poor) – 20 points. The Alum Mountain is a hydro-geological seepage zone and has long been renowned for its unusual quantity of Australian native orchid and wildflower species and for being the type site of Rhizanthella slateri. Its unique mining history is also long-renowned. Option E was rated F (fair) – 40 points.
3. Assessed Criteria D was: ‘Incorporating easy access to Bulahdelah services.’
Option A, which, with appropriate interchange design, would enable road users to access Bulahdelah services via travelling in the direction of their destination and to re-enter the highway at a point closer to their destination was rated P (poor) and allocated 17 points. Option E, which (at the time of the VMW) would have entailed an increase in travelling distance – away from and back to the highway via a central interchange, was rated VG (very good) – 68 points.
4. Assessed Criteria G was: ‘Minimising adverse visual impacts and aesthetics’.
Option A, with minimal cuttings and away from the village in an area of little aesthetic significance, received a VG (very good) rating and 12 points. Option E, with a gargantuan cutting through Bulahdelah’s principal and only historically recognised aesthetic feature, the Alum Mountain, was rated E (excellent) and given 15 points.
5. Assessed Criteria H was: ‘Maximising the improvement potential for Bulahdelah’.
Option A, which would bring about improvement merely by removing traffic noise and air pollution from the village and, with appropriate interchange design and location, would also maximise potential for any further improvements to Bulahdelah, was given 9 points – which would have been either F (fair) or P (poor). Option E would destroy existent public amenities and would transfer, not reduce, traffic noise and air pollution within the village. Acoustic impacts of Option E would be exacerbated by: batters; increased traffic speed; and reverberation from the Alum Mountain. Option E would also have massive construction impacts on Bulahdelah, including high likelihood of vibration damages to buildings (especially, but not limited to, those on stumps in clay soil). Option E was rated E (excellent) and received 45 points.
Further evidence that the VMW was defective can be found in some of the erroneous claims made by the four Sub Groups when recommending that Option E be pursued and further developed.
More recently, the then DIPNR (now the Department of Planning), in a response to the EIS, questioned ‘Why Option E’ instead of another route, especially Option A. Part of the RTA’s reply was:-
‘It is also important to note that some of the key stakeholders such as the Karuah Local Land Council and DEC indicated a preference against the development of the western route options (including Option A) during the route evaluation phase. This preference was related to ecological and heritage issues identified in those areas during the earlier phase of the project or would potentially be identified in the detailed assessment phase if a western route was [sic] chosen as the preferred route option’.
This is indeed important:-
As aforementioned, the Indigenous Cultural Heritage Component – A Report to PPK Environment & Infrastructure Pty Ltd for the NSW RTA, was published in May, 2000. On page 2 of said report (which incorporated the study area encompassed by the blurred orange blob of Newsletter 1) it is stated:-
It is concluded and recommended that:
Based on the surface evidence and the present level of assessment, there are no known Aboriginal sites within the study area which would pose a permanent constraint on the proposed development.
There are no known places of special or historical Aboriginal cultural significance within the study area.
A comprehensive surface archaeological survey, followed by a program of selective subsurface testing within sensitive landforms, should be conducted along the preferred alignment(s) of the upgrade easement and depot areas.
Where possible, the preferred upgrade easement should be located in such a way that impact to landforms of predicted high and moderate archaeological sensitivity should be avoided or minimised.
Also as aforementioned, the Aboriginal Land Council at Karuah has a pecuniary interest in Option E. It was at the extremely flawed VMW that Karuah Land Council ‘indicated a preference against the development of the western route options (including Option A)’ by ‘signing off’ on Option E.
In 2003 the NPWS was amalgamated into the DEC (now the DECC). It was at the extremely flawed VMW that the DEC, via its (then NPWS) representative who was in a position created and funded by the RTA, ‘indicated a preference against the development of the western route options (including Option A)’ by ‘signing off’ on Option E.
Aboriginal Issues (in brief)
On Wednesday, 10th October (2007) the RTA placed notification of a consultation period for ‘Aboriginal groups and/or [sic] Aboriginal people’ in the Great Lakes Advocate (page 22). Titled Aboriginal heritage assessment, the notification says:-
The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) is continuing with investigations to upgrade the Pacific Highway at Bulahdelah.
The RTA seeks the registration of Aboriginal groups and/or Aboriginal people who wish to be consulted on Aboriginal cultural heritage matters relating to the Bulahdelah upgrade.
The cultural heritage assessment may result in the RTA applying for a section 87 permit and/or a section 90 consent under Part 6 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, and may also be used in the assessment of the impact of the project under the Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979.
Registrations from Aboriginal groups and/or Aboriginal people wishing to be consulted must be received by phone or in writing by Friday 26 October 2007.
(The above is followed by the name of the RTA Project Engineer, postal address, email address and telephone number.)
Aside from the fact that Aboriginal groups are of Aboriginal people and the RTA’s wording, ‘Aboriginal groups and/or Aboriginal people’, which implies that they are not, is abusive, the State and the Australian Government logos are included in this notification.
The State Government and the Australian Government, as well as the RTA, have advertised that Aboriginal heritage is currently being assessed. As they have invited input from individuals, Aboriginal sites, whether or not agreed on by Karuah ‘Local’ Aboriginal Land Council, should not be tampered with in any way whatsoever until such time as said assessment period has concluded.
On 10th October, 2007, it was found that a drilling machine involved in the RTA’s BH series of drilling operations had been being used on the lower slops of the Alum Mountain near ochre-strewn ground which is, in turn, adjacent to two stone circles which may possibly be dancing rings.
Drilling machine at the RTA's BH:235 site.
This has damaged an area near a possible Aboriginal site.
The peg at the abovementioned drilling site.
BH:236 ready for drilling - at the B8 Aboriginal artifact scatter site.
