The site is located within the Maroochy North Coolum Key Resource Area 156.
While it would be concern if this KRA became operational, it is a designated state resource for sand - not a supply for a private developer to use as 'fill' for urban development!
Because of their economic importance to the state, significant extractive resources must be protected from development that could impact on their long-term availability.
The Key Resource Area (KRA) concept is a planning tool designed to protect resources from being rendered inaccessible by urban expansion.
Extractive Resource description:
A significant deposit of construction sand occurs in the alluvial flats of the Maroochy River. This deposit consists of marine fine-grained silica sand overlying estuarine and marine muds and clay in places covering possible fossil alluvial channels or tidal fine to coarse-grained silica sand.
Special considerations:
A large part of the resource is subject to the provisions of the Queensland Coastal Plan administered by the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection. Drilling also confirmed the presence of acid sulphate soils in some samples.
Most of the KRA is covered by Strategic Cropping Land Trigger Mapping under the Strategic Cropping Land Act 2011 administered by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines. This indicates the location of potential SCL and further on-ground assessment against the SCL criteria is required to confirm whether the area is SCL or non-SCL