Brett Stevens announces retirement

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and this old story too http://www.minerscorp.com.au/index.p...s_full&id=7657

A south western Queensland quarry near Roma has reached settlement after a protracted dispute between landholder and operator.

Sutton Range Quarry operator Queensland Quarry Group (QQG) has come under fire for a series of alleged breaches, which quarry manager Brett Stevens said were initiated by the Cosgrove family, who own the land where the quarry is located.

This morning the Courier Mail reported that the Queensland Quarry Group had been accused of being an unlicensed venture, and did not have approval to sell material to construction companies.

Maranoa Regional Council compliance officer Warren Oxnam said that there were various exemptions available for the QQG quarry permits, but that council did not know enough about QQG’s customers to know if they qualified for those exemptions, which led council to issue a ‘show case’ notice.

“We issued them with a show cause notice, and as part of that we required them to lodge a development application which they’ve now done, and council is in the process of assisting with that as we speak,” Oxnam said.

“We’re still not entirely sure who their customers were, but council was concerned which is why we issued the show cause notice against them.”

The council issued the show clause notice to all entities involved, including the property owner, the operators and the management company.

“…To anyone we could identify,” Oxnam said.

“It’s our habit to give them all the show cause notice to make sure that nobody escapes the net, they can’t say they didn’t know.”

The next step in the council’s approval process for the quarry to sell materials will be to carry out a public notification.

“We will issue a notice placed on road frontages of the property for local community to have the opportunity to object or put submissions in about it, and after the public notification period ends then councillors would be in a position to make a decision about it.”

The Sutton Range Quarry produces hard rock and sand used for road bases and aggregate, and counts among its customers gas field contractors and local businesses.

Quarry manager Brett Stevens, a former drag racing champion, has become a subject of interest to the media with the Courier Mail reporting that he is currently defending against drug distribution charges, and that one of the owners of the quarry is a former Rebels bikie gang member whose share is owned through a company named ‘Don’t Ever **** With Our Money’ (DEFWOM).

“They’re jumping on the bikie thing and charges that I’ve been on that are still going through, so, never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” Stevens said.

“There’s five shareholders in the company, they all have their own business interests as well, the venture was something I’ve put together, I met the landowner here in August 2012, and he’s the one that’s gone and told all these stories.”

We had an extraction permit for 100,000 tonnes in May last year, but there’s a bit of a grey area between council and environmental protection, they changed the laws last year, if you get a permit from EHP, if it’s for flood related works you don’t need a DA from the council,” he said.

Stevens said the quarry has two 100,000 tones permits for extraction, but that the second permit doesn’t stipulate the uses for the material.

The nature of the dispute is subject to non-disclosure, however Stevens told Australian Mining that the dispute has reached settlement through mediation.

“It was just all about greed,” he said.

“Nothing’s actually been to a trial, we’ve done everything right, but you know, turning up at eight o’clock at night full of rum and chaining the gate up… is just not f-ing cool.

“The good thing about it all is that every person or department that has had complaints made against us, we have worked with them, and if we had made any mistakes they were rectified immediately.”

The quarry is currently operating, and Stevens said he hopes approval of the one million tonne permit for sale will be approved by council within the next few months.

“We’ve actually got a million tonne permit, the application has been properly made with the council,” Stevens said.

“We’ve had someone working on this permit since March last year, but the property owner’s son took over the permit application and now we’re out of pocket.

“We still have 80,000 tonnes left on our second permit to send out.”

Stevens said that since the quarry was started in 2013 there have been some minor issues including silt containment, a two day shutdown by the Mines Department over incomplete paperwork, but that all issues were promptly rectified and that all departments concerned are satisfied with the operation of the quarry.