Cave-in On M5 Tunnel Exhaust Stacks
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday June 25, 1997
The State Government has buckled to community pressure, offering to remove three exhaust stacks from residential areas and to purchase homes lying above a four-kilometre tunnel under final changes to the M5 East motorway costing $100 million.
However, it has stopped short of community calls for the road corridor to be shifted back to the site under the Wolli Creek Valley originally reserved for it 46 years ago, claiming the extra tunnel construction costs of between $153 million and $171 million would be prohibitive.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Urban Affairs and Planning, Mr Knowles, is likely to announce today the findings of a departmental assessment on the Eastern Distributor on which hinges the project's final planning approval.
Three 15-metre exhaust stacks, built to release exhaust fumes from a four-kilometre-long tunnel earmarked for suburban Arncliffe and Bardwell Park, are to be removed and replaced by a single, 25-metre chimney on an industrial estate in nearby Turrella.
Residents living directly above the tunnel are also to be given the option of selling out to the Roads and Traffic Authority within the next four years at market values existing before the road proposal was announced, and being reimbursed for relocation costs, legal fees and stamp duty.
All residents, regardless of whether they sell, will be eligible for a yearly payment of $750 to allow the Roads and Traffic Authority access to their property during construction.
The buyout offer is similar to that made to the owners of 244 properties lying within 15 metres of the M2 tollway that was withdrawn by the State Government in November 1995 because of the cost.
Yesterday, the Coalition poured scorn on the changes, saying they would create a giant exhaust pipe under residential developments to be expelled at Turrella and turn Arncliffe and Bardwell Park into a "virtual quarry".
The president of Transport Action Group Against Motorways Inc, Mr Gavin Gatenby, claimed the single exhaust stack would mean all exhaust gases would be pumped into a valley where they would not disperse well under still-air conditions.
He said the worst effects would be felt in the residential areas of Turrella and the lower lying parts of Bardwell Park and up to a kilometre away in Earlwood. He accused the Government of buckling to NIMBY - not in my back yard - interests.
The chairman of the M5 East Community Co-ordinator Group, Mr Chris Flatt, said the community remained concerned that the road corridor was unchanged and that emissions from the single stack would be unfiltered.
The 13.2 kilometre freeway is to stretch from General Holmes Drive in Kyeemagh to the existing M5 motorway at King Georges Road, Beverly Hills, providing freeway conditions from the Sydney CBD through to Canberra.
Last November, the RTA changed the road alignment to take it further south, announcing a four-kilometre tunnel to make it more environmentally acceptable and recosting the project at $520 million.
The motorway, to be completed by 2000, will now cost $624 million, funded entirely from the RTA's $2.2 billion annual roads budget.
Another change announced yesterday was the construction of a 400-metre tunnel beneath the Cooks River to ensure no interference with the operations of the east-west runway.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald