Environmental assessments fail to protect threatened species

Submitted by keith on

The environmental impact assessment for walking tracks and other visitor facilities are failing to adequately protect threatened species and environmental assets. The assessment for the Lost City track in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area estimated a potential 15% loss of a threatened plant population. This impact didn't trigger public exhibition or further environmental assessment and points to a fundamental flaw in the existing regulations.

Briefing - Problems with Springvale’s Water Treatment Plant

Submitted by keith on

Problem #1 - the approved no discharge design no longer works: A $250 million water treatment plant, commissioned in 2019, faces critical issues. It was designed to be a no-discharge scheme, meaning treated waste was meant to be released as water vapor into the atmosphere through the Mt Piper Power Plant's condensers. However, the plant often operates at much reduced capacity or idles due to the rise of green energy sources, reducing by many megalitres a day the plant’s need for coolant water.

Exhibition period for luxury cabins has closed

Thank you to everyone who made a submission aginst this damaging proposal. The proposal to build serviced cabins for tourism in pristine parts of the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area near Lithgow risks damage to its internationally renowned pagoda landscapes and will set a dangerous precedent.

MEDIA RELEASE: Beaucoup Bulldust hides wilderness development plan

-Commercial accommodation could blight a park’s glorious pagoda landscapes-

Thursday May 2, 2024

 

Yesterday the NPWS advertised a 31 day public exhibition of an intention to lease three commercial accommodation sites to Wild Bush Luxury, a subsidiary of Experience Co. The lease proposal is for three sites with six cabins and a common lounge building at each site set in a spectacular rocky pagoda landscape in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area1. 

Artists impression of cabins in a pagoda landscape