Above all do not rely upon authorities to necessarily do what you see as “the right thing” because, based on our experience, they can choose not to. In our case the authorities have appeared willing to ignore legislative requirements, to overlook breaches and to disregard the requirements of the planning scheme to protect (and where possible, enhance) your amenity. In our case, this is presumably so that CASACIR could operate a quarry in the manner they choose to, regardless of what they have said that they would do, regardless of what they are permitted to do and sometimes regardless of what they are required to do.
Know your rights. You are entitled to ask questions and to get answers. You are entitled to at least view any application as soon as it gets to council. A copy of any document that forms part of the application is able to be obtained or at least viewed. Assess the quality and quantity of the documentation to see if it is a “speculative” application and home in on that if you believe it could be the case. There should be clear aerial photo plans showing staged development and rehabilitation. Are there property titles, and are they recent and accurate? Is the application filled out in accordance with the certificate of titles? Is everything they say is provided actually provided? Is everything they say actually true?
Ask questions and keep asking them. Ask for proof, ask for all the information they have, ask for justification of their stance. If they won’t readily supply it then do an FOI.
Make a list of every claim made by authorities, the applicant, specialists, anyone – and see if such claims are even vaguely feasible. Make note of how any and every claim would affect you. Most of all, read “between the lines” – in other words, see what is not being said.
Particularly assess the information against the planning scheme. Especially the clauses relating to amenity (noise, air quality), buffers (the clear requirement for a “clearly defined buffer” (the area around the proposed quarry from the most outward point of emission to the point at which the performance standards are met – see the “buffer” page), and that buffer has to be “owned or controlled” by the applicant), natural resources (water, agricultural land, …), the municipal statement, farming zone (or whatever zone it is proposed to be in), extractive industries, decision guidelines, …. And, just because they may say that they have addressed the planning scheme, does not mean that they have, or that they have done so properly. For example, the quarry that is now next to the property we had owned said that they had addressed the scheme thoroughly and, unless you looked at it yourself, it seemed as if they had done so. However, while they had quoted sections, they then ignored the parts that they did not want to address, or said that they were not relevant when, in fact, they were. In one instance they were absolutely and, (I contend) deliberately, inaccurate because the planning specialist they used (Jack Kraan), in response to the fact that waterways, groundwater and catchments had to be protected, said that there were no waterways in the vicinity of the extraction, when in fact CASACIR was intending to quarry through the spring, the upper catchment of it, the aquifers which feed it and the upper reaches of the waterway which flowed from it. When challenged by council (because the council officer was challenged by me), Kraan changed his claim to “no named waterways”. I contend that this was deliberately misleading statement because he was fully aware of the situation (he wrote about it in his planning report) and, besides that, he ignored the issues of groundwater and catchments entirely (and that is just one of many such planning scheme issues).
Find out as much as you can as early as you can and use the FOI process to your advantage as much as possible. Keep doing FOI requests because new facts are found each time.
Research and discover what licences and permits are required, even if they are not identified in the quarry documentation (e.g. look at water (take and use, bore, works on waterway, …), planning, EPA, …).
Correspond with the key people in each of the authorities. Try to have a paper trail of everything. If you have to make a phone call, then make sure that you get the persons full name, phone number and, where at all possible, their email address. After the phone call, send them an email thanking them for their time and confirm the basics of your conversation – you may need to use this at some point and otherwise it is your word against theirs.
Go through the work plan and associated documentation again and again and again, making notes as you go of things that are not said (“read between the lines“) as well as things that are said. Literally go over the plans with a magnifying glass and compare it to the work plan and other documentation, make notes of the inconsistencies, inaccuracies and contradictions. Measure the documentation against reality. For example: the first work plan for the quarry next to us, said that the watercourse flowed from the spring into the dam. However, there were two issues with this statement. Firstly the flow did not go to the dam but, instead, it flowed into and through our property, and then joined with another watercourse, and from there to the Latrobe River (that was the reality). Second problem was that, in order for it to go into the dam it would have had to flow uphill, which it obviously did not!!! Another mistake was that they said that there would be no “land disturbing works” in the erosion management overlay, but, in contradiction to that, they also said that they would be building a dam in that same overlay (on top of a hill) – I questioned how they were going to do that without having any “land disturbing works”, because as far as I can tell, you have to excavate in order to build a dam and those works would certainly have to disturb the land! And those are just two of the many “mistakes”.
By going through the documents for the quarry that had been proposed for next to us, again, and again, and again, I compiled a document of some 60 pages, listing a lot, but probably not all, of the contradictions, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, vagueness and lack of substantiation. It is interesting to note that, although I have made claims many times (including at the tribunal) about those “inadequacies” by stating that the documentation contained considerable “contradictions, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, was vague and lack of substantiation” – the quarry owners and operators never disputed my claims!! Further, the council planner acknowledged the quarry documentation’s “plethora of errors”, and said that CASACIR’s answers to questions asked often raised yet more questions [yet this was deemed by him to be acceptable, thereby meeting his “satisfaction” criteria]!
Try to make every negative work for you. Compare various documents and plans against each other for inconsistencies and contradictions.
As stated, make sure you “read between the lines” i.e. read what is not said as well as what is said. One such example in our case was the identification of three aquifers, but CASACIR did not say that it was going to excavate through them – which it fully intend to do, and to take and use the water (too bad for anyone else who wanted the water and had the legal right to, use it).
Go through the relevant legislation. Go to the websites for the various authorities and search.
Make sure that monitoring is secretly done for the ambient (background) noise levels and air quality and surface water (quality and quantity) and groundwater (quality and quantity) well before the quarry commences, and, if possible, as soon as possible so as to provide longer term assessments and background data. You can be reasonably sure that the applicant is unlikely to – as was the case with CASACIR next to us – it didn’t want to know what the background data is and it certainly didn’t want us to know! This then allowed them to use allowances that they would otherwise not be allowed to use and to minimise the reality of their impacts. I can say this because if they wanted to know the facts and impacts they would have taken the long term background measurements.
Take photographs of the site before the quarry, and of your property – especially the view from your place to the proposed quarry site. If the quarry has commenced, then take pictures of the trucks driving on the road, and go through the conditions to see if all the requirements are being met, taking pictures of all the breaches where possible. If the conditions are not being met, then try to get the authorities to enforce the conditions and if they won’t then take out an enforcement order yourself – but be careful, because the tribunal members may choose to disregard the information you provide (no mater how much proof you have) and believe what the quarry people say, regardless of whether they have proof or not. What’s more, again based on our experience, you could be made out to be “the bad guy” just for bringing the action to protect your property and legislated amenity (which is in accordance with the planning scheme)!
Insist that the issues cannot be solved by conditions. I understand that Graeme Peake, the barrister for the CASACIR quarry near us has quoted our case as having had an excellent outcome. He is accurate – as far as the quarry is concerned – because the conditions were so wishy washy and ambiguous and the quarry continued to use this to their advantage.
Have a survey plan done of the distance from the quarry to your property and, in particular, to your house and sheds. Get affidavits from people about the various issues and their observations. Have proofs. Get good legal assistance, but you take control of your case. Do not take the word of the authorities as being absolutely factual. They are human after all and could have missed something or they could have a bias. Trust no-one. Above all, do everything that is legally possible, do not be intimidated, do not be bullied, do not accept rubbish and lies, and stick to your guns. Keep positive (a very difficult thing to do). If you have a situation like ours, you will need divine intervention – it is amazing how God has helped us (even though at times it doesn’t seem like it).
Above all, don’t expect justice!
I wish you all the best, and success.