MCU21/0110 - Application For Material Change Of Use - Bar, Food, And Drink Outlet, Outdoor Sport And Recreation, Resort Complex At 61 Noosa Springs Drive, Noosa Heads · Attachment 2 - MCU21 0110 - Manager Development Assessment Report

       ii.   Memorandum of Unitywater engineer.
       iii. Report by Paul King of MWA Environment dated 7 January 2022.
c.     Impact on the community
       Should the proposed material change of use be approved, the likely impact is that it will
       result in an environmental nuisance at a sensitive place under the Environmental
       Protection Act 1994 which could result in a prosecution of Unitywater. This will force
       environmental studies by Unitywater, and likely very expensive modifications to be made
       the Noosa STP which will ultimately be a cost borne by the rate payers of the Noosa
       Council through their water bills.
These concerns were provided to both the applicant and the consulting odour expert who
advised:
     It is my opinion that the concerns of Unitywater are validly held and that approval of the
     development has the potential to result in odour complaints and these may have the
     potential to result in constraint upon the operations of the STP. However, this must be
     considered in regard of the odour predictions which do show compliance of the built form of
     the development with acceptable odour levels (albeit right on the 2.5OU criterion limit). On
     the basis that the Katestone predictions are accurate, there would be no basis for a valid
     odour complaint from the accommodation building use to affect the lawful operation of the
     STP. The Unitywater concerns reinforce my opinion that should Council choose to approve
     this development that there need to be very specific conditions in respect to odour
     outcomes.
Conditions were provided by Council’s consulting odour expert after this advice was provided to
Council officers.
Subsequent discussions with Unitywater and Council’s consulting odour expert resulted in
Unitywater obtaining a third-party review of the application. The report notes that…the scope of
work is limited to a high-level review of the proposed mitigation measures contained within the
Provided Documents and recommend further mitigation measures that could be considered by
council and/or Proponent, which would aid in further reducing the impact risk of the Proposed
Development encroachment upon the current and future operational and business continuity of
Noosa STP under normal and unintended or unavoidable odour release conditions.
The report states that the most effective further mitigation measure, in terms of risk reduction and
operational and future capital costs to Unitywater and to the community, would be to preserve the
existing exclusion zone (i.e., separation distance). The report also maintains Unitywater’s position
that the odour dispersion modelling is not suitable for the prediction of unintended or unavoidable
odour release events, for example, sewerage network asset breakdown, significant rainfall,
heatwaves, process upsets, biosolids truck loading events, etc.
It is also noted that the report identifies that in the scenario that the proposed development is
approved, the author of the report supports in principle the odour mitigation measures proposed in
the suggested conditions of Council’s consulting odour expert.
In addition, Unitywater’s consultant recommends further mitigation measures in the form of:
•    To the extent that is reasonable, an encumbrance or similar that transfers all responsibility of
     STP-related odour complaints from Unitywater to the Proponent and is sanctioned by Council
     and DES. Professional advice from a town planning or environmental law expert should be
     consulted on this matter. Based on the sentiment in the letter by GH Australia, the Proponent
     could be willing to enter such an arrangement;
•    Activated carbon filtration to be installed on all fresh air makeup locations of the air
     conditioning systems and are regularly maintained to manufacturer specifications; and
•    To the extent that is reasonable, that the layout of structures is designed to avoid entrapment
     of odour plumes. TOU are concerned that the northward facing concave layout of
     accommodation structures is conducive to entrapment of STP odour plumes from the north.