Save Mt Coot-tha

10/02/2025

Dear Local Resident,
The Greens have supported the MCPA and Mt Coot-tha Local Residents (MCLR) actions, to reserve the Mt Coot-tha DOGIT area as public parkland usage.

The Mt Coot-tha Quarry (MCQ) provides asphalt gravel, which is an inexpensive and abundant resource.
As shown on our website www.MtCoot-tha.org , we estimate that the MCQ rehabilitation cost is around AUD$0.5BiLLION and increases every year that the massive hole is enlarged.
A very expensive gravel usage part is the transport through urbanised and congested public roadways plus the addition of the heated bitumen in more remote places like Swanbank (south of Ipswich).

The MCQ has totally ignored all the operational conditions of their blasting license.

Possible rehabilitation options such as the Eden Cornwall project in UK, have totally dwarfed all the money ever made from blasting at Mt Coot-tha.
Please attempt to visit or reply to their community meeting on Sunday, 23rd of February from 10:30 am.

Thank you for reading this email, your time and focus are highly valued.
Kind Regards, Philip Best.

Philip Best - Electrical Engineer - ABN: 64 056 607 713
Chairperson Mt Coot-tha Local Residents (MCLR)
Active Member Mt Coot-tha Protection Alliance (MCPA)
M: +61 411 123400 0411 123400
W: https://www.MtCoot-tha.org
f: www.facebook.com/SaveMountCoottha
e: [email protected]
e: [email protected]
L: www.linkedin.com/in/philbest/

Dedicated & Excited Electrical Engineer. Strategy Map expert and Strategy Map Balanced… · Experience: Applied PC Systems · Education: The University of Queensland · Location: Mount Coot-Tha · 113 connections on LinkedIn. View Phil Best’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional community of 1...

03/10/2020

The BCC has now Personally Victimised the Mt Coot-tha Local Residents Chairperson by threatening to close off his essential family vehicle driveway entrance.
This despicable act is in response to the MCLR $320 million estimated quarry rehab cost secret ratepayer debt.

21/09/2020

The Mt Coot-tha Local Residents (MCLR) complaint to the BCC CEO Mr Colin Jensen can be seen here. http://www.mtcoot-tha.org/BCC-CEO-Complaint.htm
By 2032 we estimate that the financial loss at Mt Coot-tha will be double the BCC annual budget and one quarter of the entire asset base.

Brisbane City Council CEO Is Responsible for the MCQ DA Non-compliant Operations.

12/09/2020

This week at Mt Coot-tha.
We have added one extra Lithium Ion Phosphate battery to our Uni of Qld designed, Brisbane made, home residence RedbackTech Solar Power system.
The total of 8.3 KW Hours of battery energy was able to continue powering our house until after midnight.
Looking at the chart, you can see the dark-green line on the chart which is the battery state-of-charge Percentage %, which increases during the morning and then discharges after sunset.
The light green line is the battery power flow, which in the morning is negative because energy is being lost (from the home), as it is transferred to charge up the battery.
The Orange line is the solar power and you can see that when the solar power increases, the battery charge percentage % also increases. However after sunset, the charged battery (dark green) starts to take over, so the charge percentage % reduces.
The Grey line is the Grid Power, which initially is negative as early morning power is drained from the grid into the home. However when the solar power is active, the grid power becomes slightly positive as the panels provide the power.
When the battery is fully charged, the grey line then becomes much more positive, as energy is fed into the grid.
After sunset, the grey line sits around zero because the batteries are taking over from the solar panel power.
We hope that this provides a visualization of the role that solar batteries can provide, to power your homes during the grid peak-usage period.
Please advise if you have any questions.

09/08/2020

On the 18th June 2020, the Brisbane City Council Mt Coot-tha Gravel-Quarry Manager (Mr Robert Bell), created the strongest ever measured seismic blast at the Quarry, which is located in public trust tourism precinct parkland.
This seismic event sounded like a massive bomb explosion actually inside the Local Residents Private Homes.
This seismic blast level inside the private homes homes was 6 TIMES THE NORMAL QLD, AUSTRALIAN & CONTEMPORARY MAXIMUM BLAST LEVELS, AND GREATLY EXCEEDS THE MAXIMUMS AS DEFINED BY THE USA BUREAU OF MINES (USBM).
The Local Residents are in "the fight of their life" to save their homes from further damage. They have been forced to live with this and exist in "Battle Mode" for more than 20 years, because the Quarry Closure date was secretly extended, by the Lord Mayor until 2032, with no public consultation & no public notifications.
The Local Residents thus estimated the final rehabilitation cost as $500 Million and the Lost Tourism Benefit as $5,500 Million ($6 Billion total), as a massive long term cost to all of Brisbane and their Ratepayers.
We are advised that the gravel sales customers regularly provide political donations.
Because road gravel is common, inexpensive & recyclable, we believe that the primary reason for the quarry blasting is to sustain the political donations from their gravel customers.
This despicable act is in line with the earlier statement by Cr Judy Magub "The Council shows Callous Disregard for the Local Residents". www.MtCoot-tha.org

13/07/2020

Back in 2016 the local residents (MCLR) had a “Close the Quarry” meeting in Steven Miles office. Immediately following that the VCC operated Mt Coot-tha Quarry (MCQ) Manager Mr Robert Bell created the strongest blast for 10 years as our punishment.
Move forward to 2020 when the MCLR boldly stepped forward to create the first Rehabilitation Estimate of $300 million, plus the Lost Tourism Benefit of $3 Billion. (By 2032 this secret Brisbane ratepayer debt will have increased to a massive $6BILLION. )
So this time our “punishment” for the MCLR economic disaster research, in June and July Mt Bell restarted the MCQ blasting with two extremely strong blasts. Each “punishment” blast was greater that any previously known blast, thus causing private home vibrations more than 4 times the contemporary blast vibration maximum.

25/06/2020

RPQ ASPHALT SHOULD STOP USING MCQ GRAVEL.
We have written an email to RPQ Asphalt, who are one of the main users of Mt Coot-tha Quarry (MCQ) Asphalt.
We have explained to them that by using MCQ Gravel they are not responsibly sourcing their gravel, because the rehabilitation and lost tourism debts greatly exceed the value of the gravel being mined.
We have asked them to stop using MCQ gravel and ignore all lies which are told by the MCQ Manager.
Page-1 screen shot can be seen below, plus the entire email can be seen here:http://www.savemtcoot-tha.org/mc-qag-reports/EmailTo-RPQ-Asphalt-25-June-2020.pdf

21/06/2020

It is absolutely insane that the Mt Coot-tha Quarry should continue to damage Brisbane tourism and parkland.
After thousands of hours work by the Local Residents, researching and providing details about how the "secret" rehabilitation cost is already at $300million and the lost benefit from tourism is $3Billion (since 2000), the BCC Lord Mayor Schrinner has ignored all of our data and allowed blasting to continue.
We know that Qld Labor gets political donations from the organization that uses the gravel.
Perhaps the LNP also gets these donations, because there is no valid reason why the asphalt companies cannot get road gravel from local quarries.
We have been totally ignored and all we received was a notice of blast for last Thursday.

23/05/2020

Please Like our Mt Coot-tha Facebook site. We work very hard for zero money and are strictly honest.
Looking at the recent quarry photo, it seems that the BCC is ready to attack tourism yet again.
However the regulatory goalposts have now moved, no longer cay the MCQ hide behind the (public donations) Qld Labor DES, because their donations from the quarry users places the DES in a corrupt or unfair category, hence the QHRC rules invalidate them.
With the QLD Greens likely to increase their QLD MP numbers (because they are both honest , friendly and refuse political donations), they may hold the balance of power after October.

19/05/2020

BCC Total Failure of Economic Due Diligence at Mt Coot-tha Quarry and DOGIT (Deed of Grant in Trust) Parklands.
We are amazed that such a large and economically controlled organization can "totally loose the plot" regarding the $BILLIONS of Rehabilitation Cost & Lost Tourism Benefit.
This is of course the BCC Secret Debt, which has the potential to become the GREATEST LOCAL GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC FAILURE IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA.
It is not surprising that the recent Local Government Election showed an 11% swing towards the Qld Greens Donna Burns.
If not for Covid-19 many people believe she would have won the Brisbane Paddington ward.

Brisbane Lord Mayor Replies to the Mt Coot-tha Residents for 20 Years

02/05/2020

The Real Goldmine at Mt Coot-tha is the Tourism.
We have now completed all of our Mt Coot-tha Quarry (MCQ) research and emailed both the Lord Mayor plus the BCC CEO.
Our research shows a fantastic facility for creating employment from tourism and improved parkland lifestyle for everyone, by rehabilitating the MCQ.
We have also highlighted the increasing cost of continuing with "Blasting Tourism", when this was never economically viable.
Hence our financial case is very compelling, so hopefully sanity will prevail at City Hall.
Both the political (CPV) and regulatory (QHRC) landscapes have drastically changed in 2020.

22/03/2020

MASSIVE ECONOMIC SCANDAL REPORT to LNP.
We detailed the non-compliant Mt Coot-tha Quarry (MCQ) activities, plus provided an MCQ Fact Sheet. Emailed to all the LNP Councillors & Candidates.
1. Faking their blast vibration reporting by 300% for decades, and then later by another 260%.
2. Hence LM Quirk "Disengaged" the Local Residents.
3. Using non-standard inaccurate Blast Monitoring to hide the true blast vibration values. Never best-practice.
4. Never measuring any of the hundreds of massive choking Silica blast-dust clouds.
5. Never measuring their operational noise, thus ignoring their defined maximums.
6. Never measuring their blast effects on private homes, thus ignoring their defined maximums.
7. The 2032 rehab debt is $500 Million, which is almost double the value of all rock exported for 20 years.
8. They continue to ignore other tourism-based usages.
9. The tourism economic benefit at other rehab sites, defines a $5.5 Billion missed benefit at Mt Coot-tha, by 2032 (the current BCC closure date).
10. Adding the Missed Benefit to the Rehab Debt, shows a difference of $6 BILLION. This is Double the BCC Annual Budget and Half the QLD State Budget.
This is a MASSIVE ECONOMIC SCANDAL.
The PDF versions of the images below, can be found here www.SaveMtCoot-tha.org