Federal Member for Richmond Justine Elliot and State Member for Tweed Geoff Provest have announced that more than 200,000 square metres of natural habitat at the Kerosene Bay Inlet, Fingal Peninsula, is to be replenished.
Mrs Elliot and Mr Provest made the announcement while inspecting progress on replenishing the site.
“The Banora Point Upgrade project is a very important project for the local community and it’s great to see the RTA working with its Banora Point Upgrade Alliance partners to make sure the environment is properly looked after,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“As part of the project’s conditions of approval, the project team is required to replenish twice the amount of habitat than the 600 square metres of mangroves which were removed during the upgrade work.
“However we will actually be replenishing over 200,000 square metres of habitat, more than double the minimum requirement.”
Mr Provest said the Kerosene Bay inlet, which is Aboriginal owned land and sits near the mouth of the Tweed River, required significant regeneration.
“Unfortunately sand dredging has caused silting in the inlet which has resulted in a decline in water quality and the demise of large areas of sea grass, salt marsh and mangroves,” he said.
“A number of factors, including the public illegally accessing the area by car and by foot and leaving rubbish, have negatively impacted on the local environment.
“The RTA and the alliance are countering this impact with a number of environmental initiatives, including building a barrier, which will stop vehicles accessing the wetland, using rock recycled from work on the highway upgrade.
“The environmental work is expected to be completed by the end of August.”
The Banora Point upgrade project team has worked closely with Tweed Shire Council, the NSW Department of Industry and Investment and Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council on the environmental initiatives.
A number of the mangroves removed from Kimberley Canal inlet at the start of the upgrade work were used to craft traditional carvings by the Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council.
The Banora Point upgrade project is jointly funded with $347 million from the Federal government and $12 million from the NSW State government.
The upgrade will improve road safety, improve highway traffic flow and provide easy access to and from the highway for local traffic.
The Banora Point upgrade is due to be completed in mid-2012.
