The Senate is expected to pass a motion on Thursday calling for a snap inquiry into serious breaches of environmental conditions placed on the Roe Highway extension project in Perth.
The extension, known as Roe 8, is part of the $1.9bn Perth freight link project. The project has attracted fierce opposition from environmentalists and community groups because vegetation through the Beeliar wetlands has been bulldozed.
On Wednesday the deputy Greens leader, Scott Ludlum, called on the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, to step in and order a stop to works, as well for an investigation into non-compliance with federal approval conditions.
Ludlam plans to force a Senate vote on the matter on Thursday.
According to an 18-page document sent by Ludlam to Frydenberg on Tuesday, the project’s construction and fauna management plans were not being complied with.
The requirement to survey potential nesting hollows of Western Australia’s endangered black cockatoos was allegedly not completed before land clearing, the letter alleges.
The fauna plan also requires that trapping of the endangered southern brown bandicoot occur for between three and four days, and that trapping must continue until there have been at least two consecutive nights of no bandicoots being caught. This would ensure as many of the bandicoots as possible are caught and relocated.
But community members monitoring the wetlands around the clock say they saw bandicoots being caught and removed from the Coolbellup bushland site just two hours before clearing began. Several similar instances were recorded between 13 January and 5 February, including in one of the most ecologically sensitive areas of the wetlands.
“Live bandicoots were seen fleeing from bulldozers and have been photographed being removed from sites on the same day that clearing has occurred, in blatant contravention of the fauna management plan requirements,” Ludlam’s letter to Frydenberg said.
Traps were also being set poorly, while other areas known to harbour the bandicoots had no traps placed in them at all before clearing, the letter claims.
Despite a requirement that fencing be installed to protect animals from injuries and death during the bulldozing, the letter alleges that no netting was used at any time at the Coolbellup site and that partial and ineffective netting was used at other sites.
Trapping of the threatened oblong turtle was described by Ludlam as “reckless”, with traps set for just 48 hours before land clearing began. This was despite advice from turtle experts that traps should remain for at least two weeks and that trapping should take place in autumn and winter to be most effective.
The letter also claims asbestos contamination found throughout the project site had been removed in a way that created an unacceptable health risk due to dust and there was inadequate use of water trucks to prevent dust from spreading.
Clearing of native vegetation also appeared to be occurring outside of designated clearing areas, the letter alleges.
“I am advised, based on evidence of over 40 volunteers working around the clock at the construction site, that there has been no compliance staff from the Office of the Environmental Protection Authority on site over weekends or after hours, which is often when these breaches are occurring,” Ludlam wrote.
“An urgent intervention to investigate and enforce compliance is required right now. I also kindly request an immediate copy of any records you are keeping on species mortality on site.”
Guardian Australia has contacted the office of Fydenberg, as well as the office of the WA environment minister, Albert Jacob, for comment.
The motion put forward by Ludlam on Wednesday, to be voted on by the Senate on Thursday, calls for a Senate inquiry to be held in Perth next Friday to investigate the breaches. Guardian Australia understands Labor and Xenophon will support the motion, pushing it through.
On Tuesday the Senate ordered Frydenberg to provide a summary of breaches of approval conditions on site that had been reported to him, and his response to those breaches, by 12.45pm Wednesday.
But Frydenberg’s response tabled to the Senate on Wednesday said that “neither the minister nor the department has received correspondence or reports with evidence of compliance breaches with approval conditions since construction commenced”.
But a concerned local who is helping to monitor the land-clearing sites, Phoebe Corke, says she has been sending details of alleged breaches to Frydenberg’s office since 24 January and that 13 emails had been sent in total.
“I find it incredibly disconcerting that our government doesn’t need to follow its own guidelines and that, given the many breaches of compliance, the contractors are clearly not doing their job,” she told Guardian Australia.
She said volunteers had seen bandicoots caught in one section of the project on Tuesday morning, yet land was cleared that same day. She said there were also concerns that the requirement of at least eight bandicoot traps being set per hectare was not being adhered to. She said contractors spent just one hour laying traps in an area of the site spanning almost eight hectares.
“It’s so traumatic watching 300-year-old trees being knocked to the ground and the cockatoos start screaming as their homes go,” Corke said. “There are people in floods of tears on the side of the road, who don’t have it in them to protest anymore because it is just too traumatic to witness.”
• Do you know more? Contact melissa.davey@theguardian.com
