Perth Voice Interactive

A STATEWIDE review of buffer zones around industrial sites could snuff out WA Limestone’s controverial plans for a concrete batching plant on Collier Road, Bayswater.

Mayor Barry McKenna is hopeful the review means his council and local community will win their four-year battle against the proposal.

He supports the Environment Protection Agency’s proposal to restrict industrial sites being built near “sensitive land” such as housing. The EPA’s draft “environmental assessment guideline” will require buffers—ranging up to 5km —between sensitive areas and producers of harmful gases, odours, dust and noise.

A concrete batching plant would require a 300m to 500m buffer, depending on the size of the plant.

Council officers say they’re concerned about how buffers will be measured, especially in urban areas.

WA Limestone wants the zone measured from its sprawling property’s centre, just skimming past a line of houses. Mayor McKenna says that’s a developer “just doing whatever he can get away with”.

He says the council prefers a 500m buffer but will settle for 300m, as long as it’s measured from the property’s perimeter.

Meanwhile, the EPA says the proposed plant’s noise levels and air quality have been calculated to comply with its standards.

“WA Limestone has demonstrated that the site is suitable for use for this development,” an EPA-commissioned report states.

The EPA is giving the community seven days, ending Monday November 16, to comment on the application.

Options include:

• no public review (limited local concern about the likely effect the proposal will have on the environment);

• environmentally unacceptable (likely to have a significant detrimental impact on an environmental value);

• public environmental review (wider concern about the effect on the environment and there should be a public review period).

Cr Sally Palmer is emailing residents urging them to back the second option.

“Annually 432,000 cubic metres of batched concrete [will be] heading out of the plant, meaning 96,000 full truck movements, and that’s not including the ingress of trucks and materials to the site,” she writes.

Cr Palmer says she’s crunched the numbers for an average 10-hour working day.

The council rejected WA Limestone’s first application in 2011, citing concerns over dust and proximity to houses and Joan Rycroft Reserve.

An appeal is before the powerful state administrative tribunal. To have your say, visit consultation.epa.wa.gov.au.

by EMMIE DOWLING