When Dubbo councillors Greg Mohr and Ben Shields agreed to meet up with a few residents of Eumungerie to hear their concerns about the proposed sand mine, they were unprepared for what awaited them.
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"I was contacted by a few residents on Thursday night about concerns about the sand mine. We wanted to see what their major concerns were, and when we arrived there were 32 people there," Cr Mohr said.
A development application for a sand quarry at Eumungerie was lodged with Dubbo City Council in early December.
Council's acting general manager David Dwyer said the proposed mine site would cover two hectares.
"A proposed maximum of 6000 cubic metres of sand will be extracted per annum with five truck loads of sand being removed per week, an average of one truck per day," Mr Dwyer said.
"The hours of operation of the quarry will be Monday to Friday, 7am to 6pm, and there will be no blasting."
Cr Mohr said the residents raised a number of concerns including the Mogriguy Road not being equipped to handle trucks, the noise, the deprecation of the surrounding land value, and the dust from the mine dirtying washing if it's hung outside.
He said the man who submitted the development application is the same man who held the mine in the past, generating further worry among the residents.
"The basic stance is if he complied with regulations- which he won't, because he hasn't- they would have no problem with it."
On Thursday there had only been one submission to council regarding the mine, but since then, a significant increase of people have contacted council with their opinions.
"There have been 45 to 60 submissions to council. That's a pretty good success rate based on the population. That's a high percentage of people in Eumungerie," Cr Mohr said.
He would now like to see the proposal put forward to the councillors.
"The issue needs to go to council and the councillors need to decide. We're the ones who are voted in to hear their concerns, not the council staff, and it should be our responsibility.
"I'm a big believer that if the public don't want it I'm not going to accept it. I'm not going to vote for it, I'll be guided by what the people at Eumungerie want."
Cr Shields said before attending the impromptu meeting he had no idea the residents were so angry about the development application.
He believed another residents meeting was already being arranged.
