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HILTON Grugeon’s new Karuah East quarry will need federal environmental approval because of its impact on threatened species including Tetratheca juncea.
The Karuah East corridor is beside the quarry where plant operator Ryan Messenger was killed earlier this month.
Grahame Chevalley, an owner of the quarry along with Mr Grugeon and a third partner, Alex Badior, said he expected the federal approval process to run smoothly.
The state government approved Karuah East in June after the owners said their original Karuah quarry was running out of rock.
The andesite mined at the site is used for road base and added to cement to make concrete.
Mr Chevalley said new environmental laws meant that state approval alone was now usually sufficient for such projects but the Karuah East quarry application had begun in 2009, meaning it was being assessed under the old laws.
The site was also assessed as a koala habitat and home to two other endangered or vulnerable plant species, but the focus of the government’s interest was Tetratheca.
A spokesman for the federal Environment Department said the project would need ‘‘a full federal environmental assessment’’ but that this would be done using ‘‘preliminary documentation’’.
The public would have a say in the process, which would ‘‘take into account expert scientific advice and public comments’’.
As the Newcastle Herald has reported over the years, Tetratheca has been found at many development sites but remains a threatened species despite its apparent ubiquity.
Mr Chevalley said he was not a plant expert but it appeared that Tetratheca had been listed when its life-cycle was poorly understood, and scientists had not realised it spent much of its life underground.
He said more than 6000 clumps had been found on the Karuah East quarry site alone, and now that the quarry plan had been amended, as few as 240-odd of these plants would be lost.
Amanda Albury, of Ironstone Community Action Group, said she and other opponents of the quarry welcomed the federal assessment and hoped that the Karuah East quarry application would not be approved.