Proposed road across the Mary River upstream of Traveston Crossing

The Petition of supporters of the Save the Mary River Coordinating Group Inc brings to the attention our serious concerns with the high environmental risks and potential impacts that the proposed new crossing of the Mary River approximately 1.8km upstream of the existing Traveston Crossing and the new crossing of Coles Creek approximately 0.5 km upstream of the Coles Creek/Mary River confluence and proximity to Traveston creek. The new bridges on Coles Creek is approximately 120 m long and the Mary River approximately 180 m long (subject to detailed hydraulic modelling that is yet to be done)
We are concerned that this project will have similar impacts to the Bruce Highway (Cooroy to Curra) Section B, Sankeys Road to Traveston Road (Section B) where poor design has resulted in problems with dust, extensive impacts from sediment in both Skyring's creek and Cole's creek due to the extent of the area that has been disturbed, poor design of sediment sumps and construction of sediment controls. Turbidity levels in these creeks exceeded acceptable levels in a number of rainfall events and the long term impacts have not been dealt with.

We are calling into question the referral to the federal government of this project with no information on the proposed height of the bridge,
suggestions that drainage ditches and sediment sumps will be adequate to control flood waters and sediment in the flood plain during a flood and no detail provided, no information about possible hydraulic effects on stream velocities and erosion risks/flood effects that would be required to assess risk of sediment damage on Matters of National Environmental Significance such as threatened species, migratory species and international protected Ramsar wetlands, the Great Sandy Strait.

There is no detail about additional accessory areas that are proposed to be disturbed eg lay down areas, workshops, sediment sumps, culverts, burrow pits (which from what has been seen on the Section B highway upgrade can be a hugh impact on the landscape)

Given an existing sound bridge less than 10 years old is within 2 km of this proposed river crossing, where is the economic justification that this option is the only option being considered and how is this ranked against money spent to upgrade other roads eg so that there is full use of the new Vic Olsen's bridge (currently cut off by Chinamen's ck bridge during flooding), the poor condition of the bridge at Tiaro where there is no other river crossing for 50 kms.