Should Blue Care learn from the Arcare incident?

An open letter to Noosa Mayor Tony Wellington, CEO Brett de Chastel, all Noosa Councillors, Blue Care CEO Craig Barke and Project Manager Richard McKeon

The recent bush fires in Peregian, along with Noosa Council’s decision to declare a Climate Emergency, must be ringing alarm bells for you as it is for us.

News of firefighters forming a shield around the Arcare aged care facility knowing that they didn’t have the staff or the vehicles to evacuate the facility have drawn a lot of comments in our local community about the location of the proposed Blue Care facility at Sunrise Beach.

The ABC reported:

“Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) chief superintendent Michelle Young said the original plan had been to evacuate the 90 residents and staff of Arcare Peregian Springs on Monday night, but this had to change when they realised they lacked the crews to get them out safely.

“They were all on the fire ground,” she said.

“We realised we couldn’t spare staff, we couldn’t get QAS [ambulances] and we would have needed 50 vehicles to get these people of there,” she said.

Fire crews instead formed three lines of defence around them.”

The Arcare facility has only 90 residents at present, less than one-third of what is planned for ultimately at the Sunrise Beach development. To make matters worse, the only access road will need to be used to evacuate a number of schools and other community facilities. This will put not only elderly people at risk, but also students, teachers and residents.

When one of the local grandmothers asked about the evacuation plans for this area earlier this year, she was astounded to learn that there was none! While each of the schools has evacuation plans, they are not represented on the Emergency & Evacuation planning committee chaired by the Mayor.

Forgive me for sounding alarmist, but the situation sounds dire. Noosa Council’s decision to declare a climate emergency is an acceptance that we will be experiencing longer and more pronounced fire seasons. What exactly is the point of declaring an emergency if there is no follow up action?

I think it’s fair to conclude that, should this development still go ahead despite recent events, any deaths or property damage relating to a fire incident at this site will be due to negligence on behalf of Noosa Council and the developer.

Apart from the danger posed to people, the environmental values of this land should also be taken into account.

As Dr Sue Davis told the Glossy Team Sunrise Facebook group following the Peregian fires, the limited areas of heathland that remain are significant given how much of that has now been burnt (and that will take years to recover) and how much of remaining heathland is still designated for clearance by Bluecare.

Dr Davis quoted advice to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage from the Threatened Species Scientific Committee (TSSC) on Amendments to the List of Ecological Communities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act):

“In Queensland, this ecological community is recognised as Regional Ecosystem 12.2.13, open dry heath on Quaternary dunes and beaches, and is listed as being “of concern”. All existing sites of RE 12.2.13 occur within Noosa Shire, mostly within Noosa National Park, to the east of Lake Weyba (Accad et al. 2001). The remainder of the Queensland stands occur on freehold or leasehold lands adjoining Noosa National Park.”

While at the time this ‘dry open heathland’ wasn’t deemed eligible to be listed as threatened, it is probably worth revisiting given what has been or is planned to be cleared!

We hope that you will consider other more palatable options including possible land swaps instead of forging ahead with this dangerous and environmentally destructive project.