In stark contrast to the aborted pipeline information sessions just one week before, the Australian Rail Track Corporation held an open meeting at Coonamble RSL Club on Wednesday 13 December to discuss the Inland Rail project now that the federal government has approved the route.
Despite oppressive heat in the RSL Auditorium, the meeting ran smoothly.
About eight ARTC staff were on hand to answer individual questions after a programmed presentation which stepped the audience through the history of the project and the next steps.
Each of the ARTC speakers acknowledged the poor communication and what Coonamble Shire Councillor Bill Fisher called “abysmal interaction” that had occurred to date.
“I do accept that we haven’t got to everybody,” said Mitch Carr, Senior Project Manager. “And I regret that.”
“This sort of project has the capacity to divide neighbours.”
“We understand the complexity and we are aiming for the least worse outcome.”
Members of the crowd, of around 90 people, were given a chance to comment or ask questions at the end of the official presentation.
Speaker after speaker took the opportunity to question the decision to select a route that uses so little of the existing Dubbo to Coonamble rail corridor and to criticise the ARTC for their lack of genuine consultation.
According to Mrs Barbara Deans, an outspoken landholder whose property will be split in half by the Inland Rail line, Coonamble people “don’t want to stop the Inland Rail, we want it done right”.
Former Shire employee, Mrs Carmel Readford told ARTC that the district had always supported the Inland Rail and had had involvement since well before 2010.
“Coonamble Shire Council contributed to a fund years ago that was pushing for an inland rail project,” she said.
The Narromine to Narrabri section crosses the Castlereagh Highway at Curban before heading to Mt Tenandra and between Square Mountain and the Warrumbungles before heading through the Pilliga State Forest and skirting the Santos gas field south west on its way to Narrabri.
The meeting was advised that in the confirmed corridor of this section there are 450 properties and around 300 landholders.
Mrs Deans also said that “people are angry and have been under terrible stress for 18 months.”
She told ARTC that they are “building a levee around the Warrumbungles.”
There appears to be a loss of faith in ARTC’s handling of the ‘largest greenfield section’ of the Inland Rail project.
James Nalder, Chairman of the Coonamble branch of NSW Farmers Association pointed out that another team of ARTC representatives had made similar promises to improve their communication with stakeholders in the region at a meeting held at Coonamble Bowling Club in June 2016.
As one of the organisers of that meeting, Mr Nalder said that there had been “practically silence” from ARTC since.
“And you want us to believe you, when you have basically put people through 18 months of hell,” Mr Nalder said.
“We’re still no closer to knowing what’s going on here.”
Other attendees questioned the assumptions used to determine the selected route, asking to see the raw data and claiming that the figures are ‘rubbery’.
Apart from allowing concerned residents to air their grievances, the meeting seemed designed to get landholders to take their medicine and prepare to participate in the next phase of the project.
“We are here to understand and work with you,” said Ms Olivia Newman Program Delivery Manager (NSW). “We want to understand how to reduce the impact.”
The meeting laid out the facts in terms of the Minister’s approval of the preferred route and the next steps to fine-tune what is now a 2km wide corridor down to a 30 or 40 metre wide alignment over the next 18 months to two years.
“We expect to make an application to the NSW Government for a State Significant Project in March 2018. Then they will give us the conditions for the Environmental Impact Statement ( EIS).”
“The EIS is the approval to embark on the next phase of design and land acquisition,” Ms Newman said.
The section from Mt Tenandra to Baradine will have a study area from 1km to 3km wide, while the Baradine to Narrabri section will be 2km until the section adjacent to the Santos project where it will be much wider, although ARTC say they have not had interaction with Santos at this stage.
“We just know that they are proposing to do a lot of big messy things with wells and pipes,” Mr Carr said. “We don’t know what they are but we want to keep out of their way.”
A local landholder said that “it is the biggest slap in the face for the Coonamble community that they’re working around Santos, but they won’t take the needs of our community into account.”
It is expected that initially there will be 10-12 interstate trains per day, plus “local traffic” comprised of rolling stock from connected branch lines which can take advantage of the Inland Rail line.
The interstate trains are expected to be 1800 metres long, with a 25 tonne axle load, travelling at speeds of up to 115km per hour.
Ms Newman confirmed that there will be no twin tracks, although there will be passing loops which will mean a wider rail corridor in some locations.
Mrs Newman told the meeting that some sections of the rail corridor will not be fenced but this will be negotiated with individual landowners.
“There will be phone calls to landowners within the study area,” Ms Newman said. “You will receive a letter confirming whether you’re in or out of the study area.”
ARTC have also committed to holding more formal community meetings.
The question is still being asked as to why ARTC could not have worked with the Coonamble and Warrumbungle Councils to contact every landholder within the wider project study area when they began the survey and consultation process and before the preferred corridor was approved.
“I know that ‘We value your feedback’ sounds like a token statement,” Ms Newman said “But we want to work more proactively and cohesively with you.”
“This is the biggest project on the line and we want to understand the requirements of the local community.”
