Hobart City Council Alderman Reynolds has raised new questions about whether the excavation required for the building of Montpelier Retreat adjacent to Salamanca Place has received the appropriate level of attention from Tasmania’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Alderman Reynolds says the excavation of bluestone (dolerite) to allow for five storeys of underground car parks should be classed as a quarry under State law, given the amount of excavation material and the challenging nature of the operation.
“The development will produce more than 37,000 m3 or around 100,000 tonnes of excavated rock, which is seven times more rock than the minimum threshold of 5,000 m3 that usually triggers the EPA’s involvement.”
“This is more than a construction proposal – it needs to be assessed as a quarry or mining operation.”
Concerns have been raised that the excavation of 5 storeys below ground has the potential to damage the heritage buildings of the historic Salamanca area, due to the need for blasting the bluestone rock, the vibrations that will be generated, and tens of thousands of truck movements a year to remove the rock over a year or more.
“I am not convinced that Council has the expertise to be dealing with an excavation of this scale. It should be in the hands of the EPA, but I understand the EPA Board has said they don’t need to get involved because of a technicality – that the material being excavated will not be sold.”
“I don’t think the average Hobartian would buy that excuse. This is a proposal for an unprecedented level of underground excavation in a historically important heritage, residential and tourist area, and it deserves the eye of the EPA cast over it.”
“The EPA should undertake an environmental assessment and regulate the operation. The information the Hobart City Council has before it about the impact of the excavation on the Salamanca heritage precinct is really not doing the area justice.”
Alderman Reynolds said that she received information recently about the quarrying aspects of the development from an experienced mining geologist.
