The Post-Zipline Perspective: It became clear at Mt Coot-tha, that the BCC Civic Council Values differ greatly from those of their ratepayers, who now reconsider their BCC trust relationship.

1. Following the Mt Coot-tha Protection Alliance (MCPA) and Mt Coot-tha Local Residents (MCLR) "People Power" success, in forcing the BCC to cancel the highly controversial and unpopular Mt Coot-tha Zipline, it is both clear and prominent that the BCC Civic Council Value System was grossly misaligned with that of their ratepayers.
2. Whilst some people complain that there is "nothing to do in Brisbane", the MCLR believe that an extremely expensive Zipline over an ugly dirty blasting quarry, was grossly ill-conceived and could never have provided any Gold Coast "Copy-Cat" solution.
3. The primary BCC stakeholders have always been their ratepayers, who along with the MCPA have demonstrated a clear vision for the Mt Coot-tha Parklands, with unique, easily accessable and highly sought-after natural attributes, which were cast-asside and under-valued by the BCC Zipline Project.
4. The BCC Civic Council has revealed in clear detail for everyone to see, that their Procedures, Objectives and Initiatives along with their ratepayer trust relationships, were both deeply flawed and unacceptable.
5. As the Brisbane residents look towards the future of their much-loved Mt Coot-tha parkland area, the fundamental problem remains> The massive and extremely expensive ecological disaster, which is "Brisbane's Huge Hole on the Hill" (The Mt Coot-tha Quarry).
6. Brisbane RTI have advised that the BCC has not created any rehabilitation plan for the huge hole that they have created, which contains deep water down at sea level and approximately 10klm of dangerous and unstable blasted cliff faces above.
7. There is no BCC rehabilitation plan - because the mining is continuing - because when the mining stops the land reverts to DOGIT parkland - which will require the BCC to account for the massive rehabilitation costs.

Serious Unanswered Questions: When will the Brisbane Public get answers to these questions:

    1. When will the BCC Aggregates department hand the quarry area over to the BCC Gardens Department?
    2. How many Hundreds of Millions of downstream ratepayers dollars, will the looming Aggregates department Mt Coot-tha Quarry rehabilitation cost be?
    3. Does the added rehabilitation costs exceed the continued gravel sales, as the blasting damage repair bills grow ever larger?
    4. How much more income and employment will the future gardens-based tourism usage provide, than by continuing to blast and sell gravel?
- The MCLR residents believe that:
    5. Continuing to blast and mine at the furtherest away location next to Scenic Drive, is greatly increasing the rehabilitation costs.
    6. A future world-class-gardens revenue for Brisbane, would surely create considerably more income and employment than mere gravel sales.
    7. There is a very strong case for the rehabilitation assessment process to commence before 2020.
    8. As the BCC RTI have stated that any rehabilitation planning cannot commence while the quarry is being mined, this requires the immediate cancellation of the State government KRA-42 designation.
    9. For the BCC to continue blasting & mining beside Scenic Drive, simply because no bigger-picture value judgement is available, is as ill-conceived as the BCC Mt Coot-tha Zipline concept.

Brisbane Times News Article: Brisbane Residents Fight Quarry over house and health concerns.

ABC Brisbane Radio Afternoon Show: Follow-up Interview with Phil Best and Anne Boccabella regarding the Mt Coot-tha Quarry news story.

ABC Brisbane Radio Afternoon Show: : MCLR Response to Asthma & Silica Dust concerns.

1. These levels of silica and dust emitted at the 28th February 2019 Mt Coot-tha Quarry blast can be absolutely deadly.
2. This is a severe choking dust storm in a natural forest, which is adjacent to a family tourist picnic area.
3. These massive residual levels of dust remain in the area for some weeks, to be blown around the residential and tourist area when the wind changes.
    - These are major causes of respiratory health sickness.
4. There is only one dust monitor which has been carefully located, where no wind or blasting dust ever blows from the MCQ.
5. To adequately protect the Botanical Gardens staff, the tourists and scenic drive athletes requires 6 or more dust monitors.
6. Because there is zero monitoring done in the area, we have seen these Mt Coot-tha Quarry dust storms many times before.

BCC Mt Coot-tha Quarry Interview: At the end of the interview, the BCC scripted response was read out which was fundamentally untrue.

- We are very sorry to report to the ABC and their listeners, that the BCC has grossly lied to them.
- Below are the individual statements any why we believe that these are absolutely untrue.

1. “The MCQ has operated since the 1920’s, long before the current residents chose to purchase there.”
    a.  They pretend that the quarry existed in its current form since 1920, which is absurd.
    b.  The quarry Blasting License Schedule-F was created c1995 to specifically exclude any maximum blast strength at all on every 10th blast, and the BCC refused two times to accept two written requests from the EHP/DES, asking the MCQ to comply with the state maximum.
    c.  This is KRA-42 Key Resource Area which has Zero Standard Separation Zones where the very unfortunate residents, where some of the more than 2,000 people have lived there for some decades.
    d.  The Local Residents were given written assurance that the blasting levels emitted by the quarry were much lower than would ever cause damage to homes. This turned out to be a totally untrue.
    e.  The Brisbane residents were several times given BCC assurance that the quarry would close, but this also turned out to be another lie.
    f.  In c2000 the MCQ reinvented itself using the latest high power blasting powder and techniques, this had a disastrous effect on the local residents and wildlife.
    g.  The BCC gave full approval for new homes to be built near the quarry, and then greatly extended the quarry closure date.
    h.  The AS2187 and TMR maximums for historic buildings and significant memorials includes the Toowong Cenetary where the very strong blasting repeated for decades has caused severe damage.

2. “The MCQ continues to be a vital resource for Brisbane providing necessary materials to build infrastructure in our city.”
    a.  We can see that the quarry has run out of the main source of gravel and is now forced to mine up along Scenic Drive.
    b.  We have followed the quarry trucks loaded with MCQ gravel and found them to be delivering gravel to private companies south of Ipswich.
    c.  The BCC purchased and from 2003 operates their giant Bracalbar Quarry so that the Mt Coot-tha Quarry could be closed.

3. “In the coming year MCQ will contribute the major road projects.”
    a.  As there is no BCC MCQ rehabilitation plan or costing done, it is likely that the damage done by continued blasting and selling gravel, will cost considerably more to rehabilitate.
    b.  The MCQ is selling the gravel to private companies, whilst not factoring in the considerable rehabilitation repair cost of each and every blast.

4. “The quarry conducts a maximum of 2 blasts per month.”
    a.  This is not true. Often there are blasts every week and sometimes 2 blasts in the one week.

5. “Each Blasts lasts less than 0.6 of a second.”
    a.  This is absolutely not true.
    b.  Whilst each actual detonator cap may take 0.5 seconds to fully explode, there are usually hundreds of detonators which are exploded in a timed controlled sequence.
    c.  The blast on the 28th February 2019 lasted for several seconds.
    d.  Even an ordinary blast lasts much longer than half a second.

6. “Blasts are monitored by an independent Blasting Expert.”
    a.  This is not true at all, it is not independent.
    b.  The MCQ Manager (Mr Bell) dictates exactly where the blasting monitors will be located, such as at the much further away and totally unattended Sussex Street location.
    c.  Mr Bell decides that the transducers will be left unattended and loosely coupled to the ground by only using a soil spike, thereby reducing the energy transfer into the monitoring device and modifying the reported ground response.

7. “Residents are provided with advanced notice of all blasting activity.”
    a.  This is absolutely not true and a very sore point indeed.
    b.  Notice of blasts is something which the local residents fought hard for years to receive and has only operated for approx. 6 years, plus we are only told the date of the next blast.
    c.  Even though we have asked 15 times to be advised of any activity estimate, we are always ignored and never told the degree of activity or strength.

8. “Strict environmental regulations are in place for MCQ Operations and Compliance Audits are conducted regularly.”
    a.  This is not true, the MCQ Blasting License Schedule specifically excludes any defined maximum blast strength on every 10th blast.
    b.  The compliance audits have never considered the internal home monitoring, which were verified by the EDO as being legally required.
    c.  The EDO decision regarding the internal house noise excess has also never been considered.
    d.  There is only one dust monitor which is positioned near the Weighbridge to almost never record any blast dust, this never and cannot record anything like the MCQ blast dust footprint.

9. “MCQ is still operating and no date has been set for the quarry to close.”
    a.  It is obvious that the Mt Coot-tha Quarry has almost run out of easily available gravel rock to mine.
    b.  In 2017 and 2018 they extracted as much as gravel possible, probably because they thought that in 2019 the now-defunct Zipline would be restricting their operations.
    c.  The problem with closing the Mt Coot-tha Quarry, is that the BCC will have to admit that they have created a monster hole which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fix.
    d.  The Original Mt Coot-tha Local Plan Intention to rehabilitate & merge with the Botanical gardens seems to have been cancelled.

10. “Following the completion of extraction activities, the council intends to rehabilitate the MCQ.”
    a.  The MCQ is destroying the last of the topsoil and vegetation at their furthest away location, which is right up alongside Scenic Drive.
    b.  This area is the most expensive to rehabilitate and the least economical to mine.

11. “The future use of the site is yet to be determined, but will involve consultation with the community.”
    a.  The BCC concept of community consultation at Mt Coot-tha has never once taken into account what the ratepayers actually want or need, the chances of this being miraculously changed seems very unlikely.
    b.  The viability of the MCQ mining does not consider the urgent need to improve the existing tourism at Mt Coot-tha, as detailed in the failed Zipline proposal:
      i.  It is obvious to all the volunteers and local residents that: When the quarry closes and the Botanical gardens are expanded into the quarry area, that the easily accessable and beautiful Mt. Coot-tha can fully showcase itself to the world!
      ii.  We are talking about improving and building on the popularity that currently exists and not destroying it with an intrusive destructive Zipline.
      iii.  Indeed a professional quality longer-term popularity, which will continue to grow year on year, as it has done with other rehabilitated quarry’s in UK and Canada.