Don't bulldoze Critically Endangered habitat for a Moruya highway bypass overdevelopment! Choose the shorter option D/E instead.

I have started this petition because I am very concerned that Transport NSW is not doing the right thing by the environment for the future Moruya bypass project.

To cut a long story short, the government agency "Transport for NSW" is going to bulldoze about 1.5km of nature strip along Noad's Drive.

I've recently been made aware that this habitat is known as "Lowland Grassy Woodland", a special type of Threatened Ecological Community that only occurs on floodplains in the South East Corner Bioregion of NSW. On the 16th of Febrary 2013, the Australian Government classified Lowland Grassy Woodland as a Critically Endangered according to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

Noads Drive is even zoned as Southeast Lowland Grassy Woodland on the NSW government's own SEED maps (The Central Resource for
Sharing and Enabling Environmental Data in NSW). The Illawarra and south coast lowland forest and woodland became Critically Endangered effective 16-Sep-2016. And the River-flat eucalypt forest on coastal floodplains of southern New South Wales and eastern Victoria was listed as Critically Endangered as recently as 15-Dec-2020.

There are literally hundreds of established trees either side of the road. Please have a look via google street view at what is at stake; the total length of the proposed bypass is 8km! 

Even Blind Freddy could see that this option is going to be FAR worse for the environment than the more direct options D or E via existing tarmac roads through/behind the town (option E would be half as long at only 4km). 

Transport for NSW chose the bypass route that they wanted first and then did the environmental impact study afterwards!!

Furthermore, the bypass option G that they are proposing crosses the river at a wider point and also significantly more wetland areas (it's also closer to other existing wetlands) than option E.

Please see moruyabypass.org and sign their petition also (especially if you are living in NSW).

Here is the latest report by them, which includes some environmental information and more details about the proposed options. I invite you to read it. Like all government reports it is very bureaucratic; it seems they are doing nothing but paying lip service to the environment.

The option they have selected, option G, the orange option, they have rated as being "number 2" in terms of "sustainability". What concerns me is that they have lumped in a load of human-centric selection criteria that have nothing whatsoever to do with natural biodiversity management!

See pages 14 to 16 of the report where they have included "access to shops along the main street", "economic prosperity" and "growth in employment" in with "sustainability" of all things.

They did not do a comparison for example with the amount of trees to be cut down among all of the options. if they had, the choices would have been more obvious.

For some reason, option D did not make the shortlist. Why not? Overall, option E [the purple option] would have been a more logical choice with far less impact to the environment...

I don't know who put together the report but clearly they have never even set foot along Noad's Drive. If they had, the outcome might have been very different. It's like these decisions are made at people's desks rather than on the ground.

Tourists like to come to this area precisely because it is not overdeveloped.
I don't think it is best for the Eurobodalla region at all. Far from it. 😟

Sincerely,
Dr. Leslie Dean Brown (Mat Sci)

Who is the target of this petition?

Julian Watson - Program Director, Transport for NSW.
https://au.linkedin.com/in/julian-watson-61026b19 
julian.watson@transport.nsw.gov.au

Paul Toole, Minister for Regional Transport and Roads.
https://www.facebook.com/PaulTooleMP
https://www.instagram.com/paultoolemp
https://au.linkedin.com/in/paul-toole-890a2345
https://twitter.com/paultoolemp
paul.toole@parliament.nsw.gov.au
bathurst@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Tom Grosskopf, Executive Director, Network & Assets, Transport for NSW.
Rob Sharp, Secretary of Transport for NSW.
Fiona McLauchlan, Senior Manager South East Coast, Transport for NSW 
Vanessa Wilson, Senior Manager South East Tablelands, Transport for NSW 

Other Transport for NSW employees:
Sue Robinson, Megan Bourke-O'Neil, Carol-Anne Nelson, Camilla Drover, Joost de Kock, Kirsten Watson, Tara McCarthy, Trudi Mares, Brenda Hoang, Anthony Wing, Peter Regan, Rachel Simpson.

Gladys Berejiklian, Premier of NSW.

Save Noads Drive (road) petition youtube video

Eurobodalla shire council public forum Moruya Bypass Community Feedback

• Environmental investigations community notification (PDF, 405Kb)
• Moruya bypass Geotechnical investigation frequently asked questions (PDF, 590Kb)
• Moruya bypass Noise monitoring frequently asked questions (PDF, 583Kb)
• Moruya bypass Flooding and floor level survey frequently asked questions (PDF, 215Kb)
• Moruya bypass Landowners frequently asked questions (PDF, 173Kb)
• Moruya bypass Strategic Corridor Options Report (PDF, 6.88Mb)
• Moruya bypass general frequently asked questions (PDF, 1.78Mb)
• Strategic options process frequently asked questions (PDF, 523Kb)

Page 45 of the strategic corridors option report indicates that a number of Threatened Ecological Communities (TEC) occur within the project investigation area including critically endangered status habitat as defined by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The following critically engangered threatened environmental community zones have been confirmed as occurring within the investigation area:

Illawarra and south coast lowland forest and woodland 
ecological community

Illawarra Lowlands Grassy Woodland in the Sydney Basin Bioregion - profile

Lowland Grassy Woodland in the South East Corner 
Bioregion (Critically Endangered)

Lowland Grassy Woodland in the South East Corner Bioregion - profile

River-flat eucalypt forest on coastal floodplains of 
southern NSW and eastern Victoria

River-Flat Eucalypt Forest on Coastal Floodplains of the New South Wales North Coast, Sydney Basin and South East Corner Bioregions - profile