The habitat extension consists of two components, the Marsh Street Habitat which contains the ponds and the Southern Frog Corridor which connects the Marsh Street Habitat to the existing habitat of the Arncliffe GGBF. See the page WestConnex, Design of Habitat Extension for more detail.
Progress on the habitat extension must obviously be measured against the conditions with which the project has been approved.
Some sections of screenshots from the
WestConnex New M5 Instrument of Approval are below:
What this means is that the Marsh Street Habitat, which is mentioned in both plans, must be completed within one year of construction (of the new M5) while the Southern Frog Corridor which is not mentioned in the second plan has no specific timing requirement on it although it is probably fair to say that the New M5 project can not be considered complete until the Southern Frog Corridor has been established.
As the end date for establishment of the Mash Street Habitat is defined in terms of the start of construction of the New M5, we need to establish when construction actually started. The Sydney Motorway Corporation Annual Review 2016 which in the section "The year in review - highlights" under "July 2016" lists as one of the hightlights: "WestConnex New M5 construction commenced". Below is a section of a screen shot I took from the PDF document.
WestConnex considers New M5 construction to have started in November 2016. I looked at area around the RTA habitat on June 29, 2016. It was clear that New M5 related work had already commenced. But WestConnex considers all work prior to November to be site preparation work. I find this distinction unconvincing because it doesn't make any difference to the frogs whether they lose habitat to site preparation or to construction. Here is the relevant text from an email I got from the community relations team on January 23, 2017:
Construction of the New M5 started in November 2016 (please find attached a notification to that affect).
Activities undertaken prior to this were part of site establishment in preparation for the start of construction (see site establishment notification attached).
Construction of the ponds are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of this year.
Two documents were attached which I saved: Arncliffe construction update notification and Site establishment - Arncliffe notification FINAL The documents are not explicit about when construction started and in any case refer to site preparation and construction activities in Arncliffe. The required completion time is defined in terms of the start of construction and not the start of construction in Arncliffe.
But even going with what WestConnex says, the Marsh Street habitat needs to be finished by no later than November 2017. According to the latest information from Community Relations, the ponds will be complete in late 2016 or early 2017.
| Milestone | When | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Geotechnical and contamination investigations completed | Recent relative to January 13, 2017 | email from Community Relations |
| Start of work approved | On or before June 2, 2017 | email from Community Relations |
| Site clearing started | Some time in the period from June 26 to June 28, 2017 | email from Community Relations, verbal communication from Community Relations on June 28 and my photos from June 24 and June 29 |
| Interruption of work due to contamination | ||
| Recommencement of work on the habitat | Some time from September 18 to September 29 | September 19 conversation with a Sydney Motorway Corporations person (with whom I was in the same meeting for an unrelated matter) and my own observation (it wasn't obvious when I looked the weekend after September 19 but more obvious the next weekend). |
| Excavation work for the ponds | In the week ending October 22. | My observation and photos that weekend and the previous weekend |
| Completion of the ponds | Late 2016 or early 2017 | verbal communication from Community Relations on November 13 |
| Commencement of work on the Southern Frog Corridor | Unknown | I have asked Community Relations a number of times from August 9 to November 13 and they are unable or unwilling to give me any useful information on this point. |
| Completion of habitat extension, including Southern Frog Corridor | Unknown | I have asked Community Relations a number of times from August 9 to November 13 and they are unable or unwilling to give me any useful information on this point. |
You can see here that site preparation on the habitat had not started yet. This is a year after site preparation for the new M5 had started in Arncliffe and the Green and Golden Bell Frogs have been impacted.
Below is a photo I took on June 29 to show that site preparation has started.
You will notice that some trees that were there on June 24 are now gone. Community Relations told me on June 28 that there were trees on the site which were not suitable for GGBF habitat and needed to go.
Clearly, work has recommenced. The material under the white tarpaulins in asbestos. I am guessing that WestConnex has arranged the equipment for visual effect. I was suitably impressed, so instead of taking a photo through a hole in the mesh, I stepped back a bit to fit everything into the photo.
The three holes for the ponds are there, although the two holes further back are a bit harder to see because of the shallow camera angle. At that time, I actually believed that WestConnex was going to finish the ponds by the end of November.
There does not seem to have been much progress since October 21.
The ponds have got some lining in them now. However, it is December which means that WestConnex is now definitely late.
I noticed in July, 2017, that after some initial progress, site preparation seemed to have stopped. I first spoke to Community Relations about this on July 12 and found out that contamination has been discovered. Community Relations was not able to tell me about the nature of the contamination at the time. They got back to me on July 19. The contamination is due to the site having been a bus depot at some point in the past. Community Relations don't have more detailed information.
On July 20 I had a conversation with the supervising engineer of construction who confirmed what Community Relations had said. In addition he said that the contamination was minor and not exactly where the ponds will be constructed.