TWEED COAST ALLIANCE

Recently a number of the Tweed Community Groups met to discuss issues that affect all residents across the Tweed and also local issues that are the same across some communities.

The Tweed Coast Alliance was formed to reflect the growing realisation by local residents that any issues are consistent across all of our Residents Associations.

There are currently 10 community groups actively participating in the Alliance so far:-

  • Burringbar Residents and Ratepayers Association
  • Cabarita Beach/Bogangar Residents Association
  • Chillingham Community Association
  • Chinderah and District Residents Association
  • Fingal Head Community Association
  • Hastings Point Progress Association
  • Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association
  • Pottsville community Association Inc.
  • Tumbulgum Community Association
  • Tweed District Residents and Ratepayers Association

Our key focus:

  1. Major infrastructure developments impacting the future of the Tweed Community, food and water security.
  2. Major land development and zoning changes.
    3. Social amenity and environmental protection.

Our guiding principles:

We support the Tweed Shire’s stated Mission Statement which reflects a greater desire to “work with the community in facilitating the delivery of services”.

We represent our communities to the best of our abilities.

We identify and share useful resources which exist within our communities.

We work ethically and are transparent in our activities and motivations.

We offer to work collaboratively with the Council and other organisations on our shared points of focus.

Major Concerns at Present:

  1. Condition of the Waste Water Treatment Plants in the Shire
  2. Zombie Developments and Governance
  3. Residential Flooding and Protection of our Local Waterways.
  4. Prevent Koala Extinction in the Tweed Coast Area.

Waste Water Treatment Tweed Shire

There are 8 waste water treatment plans (WWTP) in the Tweed Shire. management of waste water and discharge into our waterways is a key element in ensuring public health. The focus of the Alliance on the WWTPs reflects serious resident concern for the current and future health of our communities.

The Hastings Point WWTP is too small, inadequate and outdated for the current and growing population. The Tweed Council is proposing an upgrade, using expansion of the current 50 year old technology, which produces an effluent quality that is not in line with todays community expectations. The Council justification is based on a simplistic life cycle cost analysis over 25 years, which is not only highly inaccurate but also contains several dubious assumptions. If this upgrade required an EPA licence review, then the resultant EIS would likely eliminate the Council’s preferred option on environmental performance grounds. If NSW State environmental law reflected that of Queensland, then the Council’s proposed option would be eliminated due to poor performance and the community preferred membrane option would be selected. If this was a new plant or one that required an environmental assessment, current Federal Environmental legislation would require a much better performance outcome than the Council is proposing for this expansion under existing historic licence conditions. In recent years the use of Membrane Technology has become the technology of choice for WWTP’s situation in sensitive environmental habitats. Examples of this are most evident in Queensland with numerous membrane plants now operating along the Queensland coast. In NSW, both Ballina and Byron shires have installed the newer membrane technology along with the benefits it provides.

The 3 communities (Pottsville, Hastings Point and Cabarita Beach/Bogangar) serviced by this facility, have gathered over 3,000 petition signatures in support of installing the ‘best’ waste treatment technology. The Tweed Shire continues to attest that their proposed technology will meet EPA standards, despite evidence to the contrary. An analysis of the performance of not only the Hastings Point WWTP, but also the other 7 facilities in the Tweed, showing ongoing breaches of the EPA licence conditions. Over the last 10 years, at least one of the 8 WWTP’s is breaching one or more of its EPA licence conditions every week. The current EPA licence is not in line with current community expectation with respect to effluent treatment quality and public reporting obligations. Under current licences partially treated sewerage can be discharged into local waterways with no requirement to immediately inform the public or regulator.

Zombie developments & governance

Zombie developments are a term given to approved developments (DA’s) that have been dormant for long periods of time and then ‘come to life’. When they do, the developer attempts to comply with only the terms of the DA at the time of approval.
Community objection is most often a response to the problem that planning and environmental standards improve/change with time however development project not completed within a reasonable time frame are held to standards at the time of the original DA, not the time of commencement. The definition of dormant is subject to debate. A simple action of installing survey pegs on the land is unacceptable as adequate evidence the development had commenced and will proceed at a reasonable pace and be completed within a reasonable time. Matters are made worse when zoning changes (prevent any development at all) further complicate these old DAs, even though the land owner has an approved DA from decades before.
There are many instances of this across the Shire, with the following two as examples.
Residents of Hastings Point have been fighting a battle with developers of 40 Creek St for the past 30 years. Tringa Street in Tweed Heads is a zombie development that has come to life and is destroying our wetland buffers and sending polluting effluent from acid sulphate soils into the local waterways. These are expensive financially, emotionally and environmentally for both local communities and Council, and can cause enormous and unnecessary hardship.
Council has accountability for Governance to ensure developments are complying with the current laws of the land. This does not just include Council’s internal processes, but also those of State and Federal agencies. Should Council fail to act or even turn a blind eye to these activities, the community not only becomes liable for potential financial losses by the developer,

Residential Flooding and Protection of Local Waterways

The community has the best long-term memory of flooding and the condition of our local estuaries and waterways. The building of the M1 created a damming affect for much of the low-lying floodplain to the west. Much of the history and impact of flooding in our communities, still rests with individual community members. In recent times, attempts are being made to model the behaviour of flood waters across many catchments in the Tweed.
Local experience is that there has been a shift in water flows during flood and major rain events caused by a number of factors.
In some cases level gauges are being installed to remotely record water levels in the catchment. The modelling and remote sensors will ultimately lead to a better understanding of how we can live on our coastal plains.
The disbanding of the Catchment Management Authority has meant that monitoring of water flows from source to outfall are now being modelled rather than monitored and managed effectively.
Today our understanding of water movement on our flood plains is improving while existing residents are being negatively affected by the cumulative impact of new developments, failed compliance requirements and greater climatic extremes. Solutions are still few and far between as insurance premiums become unaffordable for many residents. Some of this may be attributed to greater climatic extremes, but continued inappropriate development on our flood plains and the rapidly deteriorating condition of our local waterways are only making matters worse. In recent living memory residents have seen clean estuaries and waterways that flowed seemingly unrestricted to the ocean. The continued building on our flood plains, with the reduced flood water holding capacity and increase in runoff from hard surfaces, will continue to be a community focus until credible flood modelling and solutions are found.

 Prevent Koala Extinction in the Tweed Coastal Area

The Tweed Shire Comprehensive Koala Plan of Management 2020 reflects the Council’s obligation through State  legislature for the protection of Koalas. It calls for brave action by government authorities to prevent extinction. It is heartening to see the recent State Government announcement on the establishment of a large reserve for Koalas in NSW. This vision and action to protect Koalas is not always evident across our communities. Recently the Tweed Council put forward for public comment, a DA application for the rezoning of Koala habitat for residential use, despite a Section 88b precluding a dwelling on this site.
This 6.1 Ha site boundaries the Cudgen Nature Reserve on three sides. Adding this parcel to the Cudgen Nature Reserve is in line with the recommendation of the Council and State plans for Koala survival.
There are other examples across our coastal communities. Illegal tree removal and land clearing is still as issue.