Residents are livid after a bid to extend a consent by five years for a quarry currently supplying Transmission Gully.
Willowbank Quarry was reinstated to provide 40mm-sized rock for the 27km-long road.
About 400,000 tonnes of the rock would have been extracted by the time Transmission Gully opens, which NZTA announced last week won't be until September 2021.
Willowbank Trustee Limited owns the quarry site and a large area of surrounding farmland.
The company filed an application in June to continue the ongoing operation and maintenance of the quarry until 2025. The current consent is due to expire at the end of this year.
The plan was to supply material for both Transmission Gully and other projects in the local area, including flood protection works, roads, and smaller site developments, the documents said.
"This will support the construction of local infrastructure and developments and minimise impacts on the local road network by reducing the need for material to be transported from further afield."
Resident Nadine Steffens lives on the border of the quarry and told the Herald it was like "living inside hell".
"They load the trucks in the evening and it's bang bang bang bang. And the crushing of rocks and the beeping of trucks, the lights."
The new consent applicant is not intending to undertake night-time truck movements as part of the proposed ongoing quarry operations, as has been allowed during Transmission Gully construction.
But Steffens said she understood the completion of the billion-dollar road would be the end of the quarry altogether.
She said residents were sleep deprived from quarry work going into the night and starting early in the morning.
"There are several times that I've got to work and my boss has been like 'you need to go home'."
Construction work north of the Wainui Saddle, part of the Transmission Gully Project. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Another resident, Jenny Blake, said the biggest problem for those living in the area was the noise and vibration from blasting.
"It is having a significantly poor impact on the emotional health of the most affected parties to this quarry operation."
Blake said she resorted to installing double glazing to mitigate the noise, which has proven relatively successful but expensive.
When she got wind of the bid to extend the consent she told the Herald: "You couldn't print what I was feeling".
David McLay, speaking on behalf of Willowbank Trust, said the basis for the extension was the delays to the Transmission Gully project.
"It is about completing that important road, not about profits being placed above the wellbeing of residents.
"An extension after December will not involve any night-time work at the quarry. It will be the subject of evidence as to the real effects of the quarry and trucks using the quarry road."
The Willowbank Quarry. Photo / NZTA
The new consent application documents reveal the quarry would operate from Monday to Saturday between the hours of 6.30am and 7.30pm in the summer months.
Heavy vehicle movement to and from the site would be restricted to between 10am and 3pm on weekdays.
An environmental report attached to the application said noise testing had been carried and decibel readings were found to be within permitted activity standards.
Quarry operators might also consider turning off engine brakes of heavy vehicles when travelling downhill to assist with noise reduction, the report said.
The new consent application said unprecedented circumstances arising from the Covid-19 pandemic had placed constraints on consultation.
It noted all occupiers were consulted on the application for the existing consent and the applicant would carry out community consultation now alert levels allowed for it.
Last week NZTA announced Transmission Gully won't open until September 2021. Photo / Supplied
The intention to operate the quarry more long term had been previously indicated in publicly available regional council documents from well over a year ago.
Upon completion of quarry works, or as areas of the quarry are completed and retired, adequate stabilisation and reinstatement of the site will be undertaken, the consent application said.
Previous landowners operated what was then known as the Judgeford Quarry during the 1990s.
Quarrying operations were halted by an Environment Court Enforcement Order in 1999 after interpretation of the scope of the original consent issued by Porirua City Council was found to be in dispute. Quarry operations never resumed, until the land changed hands.
Resource consents and monitoring manager Derek Vos confirmed Porirua City Council had received the new resource consent application and was processing it.
