Father Shane Reade, (p3 Mail 20 February) director of the Don Bosco Retreat Centre in the Lysterfield Valley trivialises the massive destructive impact of a four-year landfill project on the Retreat’s site as creating a “little nice landscape or small lake” with “a few rocks”.
The application, rightly refused by Yarra Ranges Council, now under appeal, wants to strip 15 hectares of agricultural topsoil, dump some 400,000 cubic metres of landfill to a depth of four metres, then magically “roll back” the topsoil with no ill effects, flies in the face of so many local and state protection planning controls as to be ludicrous.
The application contravenes policies of Biodiversity, River corridors and waterways, Significant Environments and Landscapes, Catchment planning and management, and the often-challenged Green Wedge Protection Zone.
The 15ha site is at the heart of the Lysterfield Valley Green Wedge Protection Zone and runs along the fenceline of the popular Granite Track in Birdsland Reserve which from its summit offers stunning views the length of the whole valley towards the city skyline.
The site also directly abuts Monbulk Creek, home of a precious platypus population, including the oldest recorded platypus in Australia. How does 400,000 cubic metres of “innominate” ie unnamed, unspecified landfill not threaten the creek‘s health with sediment run off, long term toxic leaching and removal of existing soil for four years?
I recall a Cranbourne planning disaster, where a housing estate was built over a remediated ex-rubbish dump which resulted in toxic emissions invading residents’ homes. And currently, the Sydney slip-up with asbestos getting mixed up with playground mulch.
Does Fr Reade’s optimistic appeal for trust, coupled with the vaguest of management plans for this “innominate” dump threaten the same fate for our valley? Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Judy Wolff
