sydney-city-centre-review-of-environmental-factors

Contaminated land (records)
No sites registered on the EPA contaminated land records database fall within the
study area.
Contaminated land (development history)
The proposal footprint occupies land with a 180-year development history. The city
centre core can be broadly divided from west to east as follows:
To the west of Kent Street the area was once heavily occupied by warehousing
and light industry, which serviced the former port of Darling Harbour, giving rise
to the associated potential for legacy contamination risks
The central areas have long been occupied by civic, retail and office buildings
reducing the potential for historic contamination
The eastern fringe to the city contains a number of prominent historic buildings
that have been occupied by governmental, civic, legal and medical tenants,
also reducing the potential for contamination.
An extensive market area occupied the southern extent of the city centre (centred on
Haymarket) along with the Darling Harbour Railway, whilst Ultimo has long being
developed as an educational hub and before that it was used for light industrial uses
following its partial reclamation, and therefore the identified presence of made fill.
In summary, there are many historic land uses that may have contaminated the
underlying ground. Given the above development history across the city coupled with
the recorded evidence of manmade fill around the southern precinct, there would be
the greatest potential risk of encountering historic contamination around Darling
Harbour (work site: R3: Sussex Street and S1: Sussex Street) and Chippendale
(work site S5: Broadway). However, these locations are underlain by more
permeable soils and geology, which would support the dispersion and dilution of any
historic contamination over time.
6.8.3 Potential impacts
Geology and soil impacts during construction
Soil contamination
There is the potential to excavate contaminated fill material however quantities would
be small (refer to section 3.3.7).
Ground excavation work has the greatest risk and potential of encountering ground
contamination. This would occur as a result of undertaking proposed utility
adjustments, drainage modifications, road furniture relocation, and general signage,
traffic signal and lighting pole relocations. Table 3-3 to Table 3-7 and Table 3-14
describe the location where these activities are planned to take place within the
proposal footprint.
Table 6-54 summarises the locations where the potential for encountering
contamination is potentially greater due to historic land uses and/or the identified
presence of manmade fill. The table shows the locations where materials may be
excavated below the road base course due to the above activities taking place. This
would not discount the potential to encounter contamination in other work site
locations or as a result of undertaking other construction activities.
Sydney City Centre Capacity Improvement 378
Review of Environmental Factors