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The Australian Quarrying Industry

Quarrying and Other Land Uses

Quarries can only be located where suitable natural resources exist. But quarrying activities also impact on the environment and can affect the ‘amenity’ or lifestyle of people that live near them. Finding a balance between these interests that sometimes compete represents a significant challenge — not only for the quarrying industry, but also for government and the community. Quarrying can co-exist with other land uses, provided they are not incompatible by being too close. If this balance is upset through poor land use planning decisions or poor quarrying practices, then the economic and social costs to a community can be high and reconciliation very difficult.

Aggregates are won from rock sources or from deposits of sand, or sand and gravel. Though rock is one of our most abundant natural resources, extractive resources suitable for quarrying are not as widespread as we may sometimes imagine. Extractive resources exist because of a series of fortuitous geological events. Extractive materials are bulky and are used in large quantities. Unlike mining for metals or coal, extractive materials have a relatively low value and a high cost of transportation, relative to their total delivered value. Furthermore the environmental and social impacts of moving large quantities of materials by road are reduced if transport distances can be minimised. Extractive resources are therefore ideally located close to the markets they serve, if the total costs to the community are to be minimised.

Geology and geography therefore restrict the location of quarries in the first instance. But many other factors must also be thoroughly evaluated before an extractive resource can meet company and community expectations for quarrying to take place. A range of extraction, processing, marketing, economic, environmental, social, legal and government criteria need to be carefully considered and assessed. It is perhaps not surprising that it is becoming increasingly difficult to replace depleted quarries with new quarries.

The difficulty with maintaining a sustainable supply of extractive materials, sufficient to satisfy the future needs of our society, is worsened if existing quarries are closed prematurely. This can occur if there is an intensification of incompatible land uses around existing quarries leading to the sterilisation or alienation of remaining extractive resources. The sterilisation of extractive resources, particularly from encroachment by urban development has emerged as a growing problem in some cities and towns across Australia.

Quarrying is an extractive activity. The quarrying of hard rock invariably involves blasting and the generation of noise and some dust. Quarries today minimise these effects through a range of operational and management controls. But the amenity effects of quarrying cannot be eliminated entirely.

A balance between the economics of quarrying, preserving the environment and preserving an enjoyable lifestyle for people that live near quarries, is achievable provided quarries adopt the best quarrying and land management practices available to them and appropriate separation distances are maintained between quarrying, their haulage routes and surrounding land uses.

The actual distance of separation is not always easy to predict. Because of this some quarries, once remote or established before houses were built, have found themselves or their haulage routes encircled by new urban development or other noise sensitive land uses. This can subject them to increasing complaint from adjoining or nearby landowners, raising the levels of community conflict, litigation and in some cases premature closure. This does not constitute the ‘wise use of natural resources’, that underpins one of the goals of sustainable development.

Extractive resources are finite and so quarrying involves a transitory use of land, though large resources may last for many decades until depletion. Quarries thus present a range of after-use opportunities. Many sand and gravel workings are water filled. Whilst some quarry sites are well situated for waste recycling and landfill (which itself represents a transitory use), and others for reinstatement for nature conservation, there exist numerous other potential after uses. These include built development (such as housing, commercial facilities, hotels, tourist parks, car parks), entertainment venues (for theatre and music concerts), agriculture, parklands and gardens or recreational facilities. A high profile quarrying after-use in Australia is the Penrith Lakes Olympic rowing venue in Sydney. The rowing and canoeing venue forms part of an integrated post extractive land use vision comprising elements that support urban development, conservation, passive recreation, environmental education and employment opportunities.

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