SAVE BEELIAR WETLANDS is demanding a public inquiry into the WA environmental protection authority’s controversial approval of the Roe 8 Highway.
Roe 8 was this week included in a list of 25 projects approved by EPA board members who had conflicts-of-interest.
SBW claims wetlands and bushland around North Lake and Bibra Lake will be ruined if 97.8ha of urban woodlands is cleared to build the tollway.
“We will now explore every legal option in challenging the 2012 conditional approval on Roe 8 as it stands,” says SBW’s Kate Kelly.
“Nothing less than a public inquiry will assure Western Australians that their unique environmental heritage is actually being managed properly.
“The recent approval of Roe 8 in 2013 after the EPA [approval] is now suspect.
“If the government knew the EPA’s assessment process was flawed, after the Browse Gas case, why did they push ahead with this approval?”
SBW convenor Nandi Chinna says the conflict-of-interest has shattered people’s faith in the Barnett government’s ability to make fair-minded environmental decisions.
Greens MLC Lynn MacLaren says the Roe 8 approval should be revoked.
“It is not too late to stop Roe 8—no bitumen has been laid,” she says.
“This is the final nail in the coffin for the environmentally unsound project, which should have been struck off the metropolitan regional scheme years ago.
“The conditional approval in 2013 outraged and confused the community who had been campaigning for 30 years to conserve the wetlands and bushlands.”
The Barnett government is seeking to ram legislation through parliament to retrospectively “greenwash” the 25 decisions now under a cloud.
Ms MacLaren says instead of trying to cover the EPA’s shortcomings the government should shine a light on it and fix the problem.
“Twenty-five projects over a decade is a complete travesty,” she says.
“How this was allowed to continue for so long brings to question the practices we have in place to monitor processes that ensure state authorities are not corrupt.”
by STEPHEN POLLOCK