Coming full circle !

Next year work will start on the massive " West Connex " road programme which is expected to finally free up Sydney's traffic gridlock.  It will cost thirteen billion dollars and be completed by 2023, but it seems that a curious anomaly is affecting it's costing.

The magnitude of this road building project involves thirteen kilometre of tunnels and giant boring machines will chew their way through soil and rock to create divided roadways for trucks and cars, and this will result in the excavation of 9.5 million tonnes of overburden.   The disposal of this overburden is now in question.

The last major tunnelling project in Sydney was the harbour tunnel crossing constructed in the 1980's and early 1990's and this was a dwarf compared to the thirty-three kilometres of new roads planned in the West Connex.   The overburden from this harbour crossing was dumped at sea.  In contrast, that from the West Connex is scheduled to go to landfills.

The government is concerned about the Co2 landfills generate and has moved to promote recycling by slapping an $ 80 a tonne tax to discourage dumping at landfills.   At the same time, it is concerned that Sydney's landfills are filling fast and it will be near impossible to create new sites because of public protests. Many will question the wisdom of sending 9.5 million tonnes of perfectly good fill to further reduce the life of this city's existing landfill facilities.

Surely the creation of this overburden presents an opportunity to create something useful rather than just adding to the cost of a new project.   Western Sydney is desperate for more sporting facilities.  An unsuitable site could be levelled and restored using this fill to create a sporting complex at low cost to the public purse.  Many of the states rivers are in urgent need of flood levees - and once again it seems that we are sending valuable material to the dump - rather than using it to create an asset.

Many scholars of economics would find this project costing interesting.   The contractor who wins the job of constructing the West Connex will need to  factor that $ 80 a tonne tax on sending the overburden to a landfill in the job costings.   In due course, the council landfills will be called upon to remit the taxes they have collected - right back to the government.    This is simply money - that travels full circle.

More intelligent thinking could deliver a better result !