The following letter was emailed to Jeremy Hanson MLA on 22 October 2017, regarding concerns around the proposed high density residential development which has been proposed to be constructed on Kent Street near the intersection with Carruthers Street at S66 Deakin.
I would like to bring to your attention a proposal by the Hindmarsh Company to develop 550 residential units, on Section 66 Deakin, between Kent Street and Red Hill Nature Reserve. This proposal is inappropriate because it will destroy critically endangered Yellow Box – Red Gum woodland, impact on the adjoining nature reserve and further exacerbate a poor and dangerous traffic situation.
The proposal requires a major variation to the Territory Plan to proceed. Residents are tired of development whim driven planning of land around Red Hill Nature reserve, and at the very least a public Master Plan should be produced for wider context and public consideration. Do you support such an approach? Or alternatively do consider that the land is inappropriate for residential development.
Of particular interest to the Legislative Assembly is that the site is immediately adjacent and down slope of what appear to be unstable, permeable and toxic tips. It seems reckless to be even contemplating placing people in such a situation, and raises questions as to whether the ACT Government would be liable for compensation and medical costs should problems arise, if development was to proceed.
By way of background, the history of the Deakin dumps points to the need for extreme caution:
- The original tip was established in the late1950s against a 80 ft cliff and a 50ft deep by 50 yard wide dug-out hole of a former clay quarry. Rubbish seems to be have placed directly on a sawdust base.
- The underlying geology dates back 425 million years and is a mix of highly cracked and folded sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Local springs are common particularly on the break of slopes
- Once the quarry face and hole was back-filled, rubbish was then placed so as to fill an adjacent eroded creek gully termed at the time a “Washaway Creek”.
- During the tip’s operation, fires within the tip were common while even fifteen years after the tip’s closure, subsurface smoldering occurred.
- Firefighters trying to extinguish the smoldering stopped pouring water onto the site for fear that the water and cavities burnt out by the underground fire made the slope unstable and in danger of washing away.
- It seems highly unlikely that the tip is either stable or impermeable.
- It is unclear exactly what was dumped at the tip but it is clear that it includes a mix of household, backyard, building and industrial waste.
- Building waste deposited at the tip includes asbestos, which has moved to the current surface and has become exposed requiring mediation and capping (the exposure seems to be an ongoing issue).
- It is believed that waste from the Royal Australian Mint was dumped at the tip and this may include drums and loose material of highly toxic chemicals such as Chromium, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), acids and inks. It seems likely that the integrity of any drums would have been compromised by heat and soil/rubbish movement.
- Household materials including pesticides and garden sprays are also thought to be contained in the tips. and
- For several years the tips suffered from out-of-hours, unsupervised dumping where rubbish was scattered over the wider area rather than deposited at the active tip face.
I look forward to hearing from you on this matter.,
Thanks you in anticipation
Dr Michael Mulvaney