A car fire near the proposed new Telstra tower site, off Crawford Road in East Lismore last weekend gave local residents a scare as the thick smoke blew into their homes.

East Lismore resident Susannah French said she believes the car would not have been able to get into the bushland if an access track had not been created there in preparation for the tower’s development.

Read more news: East Lismore car fire began with police pursuit

Susannah has concerns about the new telecommunications tower – which is still going through the development approval process at Lismore City Council and is being challenged by local Bundjalung Elder Micky Ryan over the development's Cultural Assessment requirements, as the site is near the cemetery.

Koala food tree plantings burnt out, with only the stakes marking them remaining.

Fire trucks attended the weekend fire and enlisted the help of locals to access water.

Koala zone

For Susannah, the car fire – which also set fire to the surrounding koala food tree plantings - only highlighted her concerns about the tower’s position and the dangers it presents to the local community and the local koala population.

“My partner heard four large explosions when the car blew up,” she said, “Fortunately the wind was not blowing westerly or the fire would have come close to, or through our homes. My neighbour even started hosing his roof.

“Now the koala tree plantings have burnt, it is tax payers’ money going up in smoke. The trees were planted by Friends of the Koala with a $100,000 grant because the area is zoned to be retained as a nature and wildlife habitat corridor and we have a koala population here.”

Susannah said she contacted the Rural Fire Service and was concerned that the person who had signed the RFS component of the DA approval had not actually visited the site.

Fire trucks out the front of Susannah's house.

The fire on the access track to the proposed tower, off Crawford Road, behind the cemetery at East Lismore.

Cleared track

“I noticed there’s a cleared area near the site off Crawford Road like a parking bay now, next to the DA sign and the 4WD track that has been made into the bushland,” she said.

“It’s received a lot of attention and seems to be in readiness. A car driver would not have seen that track, if it hadn’t been made more visible- and the fire truck had a lot of trouble getting in there.”

Susannah said Friends of the Koala had also written a submission to Council concerned about the disruption to the nature corridor if the development goes ahead.

High impact

Susannah said she has been vocal in her objections to the tower development since it was first proposed. She said she believes the tower is “high impact” and will have a big effect on the environment and the health of people living nearby.

“I also question the zoning of the land,” Susannah said. “For the development to actually go ahead it should be a green field site, zones for industrial and infrastructure.

"The tower will be 38 metres tall, have generators and a surroundings fence.

“It also has to have a tarred access road, clearance perimeter and a turning circle for fire trucks – it’s a substantial infrastructure and this will not be low impact.

“Telstra refer to it as low impact on the environment, but they need to ask for council approval because it is high impact structure.

Radiation

“The tower will be positioned 150 metres away from our homes on our street. Our concern is that it is situated on the slope of a hill, not the top of the hill. The apex of the tower with six panels is directly in front of our homes in our view.

“We will be receiving 24/7 microwave radiation, and I question the safety of the Electromagnetic Frequency radiation so close to us – and the possibility they will use the tower for 5G.”

Aboriginal significance and burials

Recently, Bundjalung Elder Micky Ryan enlisted the help of legal representative Al Oshlak who walked the site – near East Lismore cemetery - with an archaeologist to see if an appropriate cultural assessment of the site had been done for the Development Approval.

“After that, we did a report a letter to council, because the footprint of the tower was not laid out and we didn’t know where it was,” Mr Oshlak said. “Council reported back - we reached a disagreement and we requested they do a second site inspection.

“For an adequate cultural significance survey to be done, we also require excavation work on site by an archaeologist with a ground penetrating radar, because it is near a graveyard.

“There are cases where Aboriginal people were buried outside graveyards and we are concerned about what might happen if the developers dig up remains.

“At Stoney Chute Road, a similar tower development dug up a significant Aboriginal site and left artefacts on the ground. The development was stopped.

“A lot of sites are not registered on the Aboriginal heritage website – and the law says developers needed to do more than just look at the website.”

Telstra

Earlier this week, The Lismore App contacted Telstra for comment and we are still waiting for the official reply.