TANKERS carrying spring water destined to be commercially bottled could soon be rumbling through the streets of Australia’s first bottled-water-free town.
As Bundanoon prepares to launch its boycott of bottled still water next month, the Land and Environment Court has overturned its previous refusal of Norlex Holdings’ development application to extract groundwater from Governors Street.
Senior Commissioner Tim Moore previously rejected an appeal from Norlex on the grounds that the combined effect of the removal of vegetation, movement of water tankers, risk to school children and the impact on the neighbouring property was “unacceptable”.
This week, Commissioner Moore upheld a further appeal from Norlex and approved the development application to ship out two tanker loads of water a day on weekdays.
But Bundanoon residents who have fought the proposal for three years said the result was a “pyrrhic victory” for Norlex and predicted that the worldwide attention attracted by the village’s “Don’t Bore Bundanoon” fight and “Bundy On Tap” bottled-water-free campaign would make any spring water marketed by Norlex “commercial poison”.
Bundanoon Community Association (BCA) president Ralph Clark said the campaign against Norlex had avoided the worst outcome.
“When the Don’t Bore Bundanoon committee was formed in 2006, we were told that Norlex had approval for five truckloads a day and there was nothing we could do about it,” he said.
“Now, after four development applications and five court cases, Norlex has been expressly limited to two truckloads a day, with smaller trucks, and the court has imposed a number of conditions to preserve the landscape, protect trees and reduce the impact on neighbouring properties.”
Commissioner Moore has imposed conditions intended to retain the natural landscape of Governor’s Street.
The previous applications would have meant the removal of all the vegetation along the street, which is a popular bushwalking track.
The intersection of Church Street has been redesigned and moved to save trees and special measures have been ordered to protect the root systems of large trees when the road is upgraded.
The impact of vibration from trucks on heritage-listed Jackman’s Cottage will be monitored.
Structures on the Norlex site will be smaller than originally proposed and must be screened by extensive landscaping.
The conditions also state that if there are more than two tanker movements per weekday (excluding public holidays), a fresh assessment will be necessary.
Commissioner Moore concluded that although there were risk to the pupils of Bundanoon Public School, adverse impacts on the residents of historic Jackman’s Cottage and other Governors Street, and visual impact on bushwalkers, these would be “minor” and no sufficient to warrant refusing the application.
The matter is listed for mention in court again on September 7, when the wording of the conditions will be finalised.
The Don’t Bore Bundanoon committee will closely monitor the work to ensure that conditions of approval are strictly observed.
Bundanoon will launch its “Bundy On Tap” bottled water boycott on September 26.
Mr Clark said the village had drawn attention around the world to the toxic nature of the bottled water industry and other towns were already following its lead.
“Given the public interest that has been generated by ‘Don’t Bore Bundanoon and Bundy on Tap, any so called spring water markets by Norlex will be commercial poison,” he said.
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