Tree planting marks start work at Cedar Grove sewage plant

They included members of Logan Water Infrastructure Alliance, their friends and families, Cedar Grove Land Care volunteers and Logan residents who drove from as far as Browns Plains to help. One group bused in from the Ahmadiyya Mosque at Stockleigh. Rotary Jimboomba hosted the sausage sizzle.

Local councillor Trevina Schwarz, Logan Water Infrastructure Alliance acting manager Mark Vaughn and his son Liam, 4, planted the first tree – a Morteon Bay fig.

“What we hope is that these trees will grow to create a nice atmosphere and a habitat for wildlife, with the Morteon Bay fig a signature tree that will establish a time and date and that people will see become a thing of beauty over time,” Cr Schwarz said.

“The idea was to get the kids down and make a start on creating a place where the community can go, a place that will have a wetlands and perhaps a community education centre, a place that can support wildlife and become a flagship where students where university and high school students who range from those who study engineering to environmental science can come and study.”

Cr Schwarz said though the decision to site the plant at Cedar Grove had come with controversy, with the decision made and work about to start, it was time to leave what had passed in the past and move forward to secure the best possible outcome for those who lived nearby.

She said cultural and heritage studies had been completed, earthworks seen from Dennis Road marked where site access roads would run and a site office had been erected.

Cr Schwarz said the first sod was still to be turned on the plant itself, but that was not too far away.

Cedar Grove Land Care volunteers would help plan a wetlands that would be established on site, she said.

Cr Schwarz said Cedar Grove was identified as a site for a sewerage treatment plant in 2010 and a property  purchased. Years followed before the decision to move forward was taken in 2017.

Events which included the removal of authority over water from Logan Council, its handing over to Allconnex and its eventual return to council had contributed to a climate which, sadly, left residents out of the consultation process, she said.

Cr Schwarz said the council had stalled construction to see if an alternative could be found but it could not.

A community reference group had been estabished so those who felt they had been left out of the process could at least contribute to what the plant and surrounding park and areas set aside for community use would look like, she said.