Project of the Year 2020 - The Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project

Author Ross Ullman Sunshine Coast Council

Abstract: This paper provides details of the processes associated with the planning, approval, design, construction and commissioning of an international standard , and the associated taxiways and apron parking stands at the Sunshine Coast Airport.

This is the largest aviation project undertaken by a local government in Australia and is the first time that a local government has delivered a fully international standard airport.

The project involved many years of planning and has been on the agenda since the early 1980’s.

The project was delivered through a Design and Construct Contract arrangement, with Early Contractor Involvement.

One of the more unusual aspects was the source of the runway embankment. Sand from the shipping channel into the Port of was dredged and transported 72 kms along the coast to be delivered to the project site via a discharge pipeline from the dredge that extended 4.5 kms.

Keywords: International Airport, dredged sand, environmental responsibility, complex project

Overview The Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project is the largest civil infrastructure project ever undertaken by the Sunshine Coast Council. It delivers a new international standard runway with associated taxiways and aprons that will service the air travel demands of the Sunshine Coast for the next 100 years.

This project represents the first time that a Local Government Authority in Australia has delivered a new fully international standard aviation facility in its own right.

Council entered into a landmark funding arrangement to provide the significant funds necessary for a project of this magnitude without ratepayers having to "foot the bill".

Project Details The project is an extremely complex one involving significant volumes of embankment sourced from marine sand deposits in the Moreton Bay, together with a range of environmental considerations associated with the dredging, delivery and hydraulic placement of that material and the environmental impacts that accompany a civil infrastructure project with a footprint of more than 175 hectares in a coastal location, abutted by National Park to the north and south. This complexity was then overlaid by the added considerations associated with the establishment of new Controlled Airspace and Instrument Flight Paths to enable the new runway to operate under the regulatory requirements for both domestic and international aviation passenger transport operations.

During the preparation of the Environmental Impact Study, matters of both state and national environmental significance were identified on or immediately adjacent to the project. Interactions with these matters were carefully researched and offsets identified to minimise the impacts of the project.

Council's planners placed constraints on activities to the extent that they could not be undertaken at certain time periods during any year to ensure that there were no unintended consequences associated with the works.

They also required flora translocation and habitat enhancement to protect threatened species within or adjacent to the project footprint.

Naturally, limitations were also placed on neighbourhood impacts such as flood levels and construction noise.

Finally, the project was undertaken over a three year period that included several months of above average rainfall in each of those years. This rain fell at crucial periods during the progress of the works and presented significant challenges both to the construction contractor and to Council as the Principal.

The project was delivered under a bespoke design and construct contract which included early contractor involvement to enable fast tracking of the design development to meet time constraints.

Early Planning

Whilst the proposed expansion of the airport and the construction of a new north-west – south-east aligned runway had been included in Council Planning Schemes from the early 1980’s planning for the new international standard runway began in earnest with the Airport Master Plan which was developed over two years between 2005 and 2007. The final version which was approved by Council in late 2007 identified the need to upgrade the airport to de-risk operations into the future.

As the size of aircraft had increased substantially over recent years, the length and width of the existing runway posed a risk in terms of long term passenger transport capabilities. As the existing runway was only 30 metres wide rather than the regulation 45 metres, Airlines required special approval from CASA to allow the current fleet of Regular Passenger Transport aircraft to operate.

Following the adoption of the Master Plan, work began on a Master Plan Implementation Project in 2010. This was followed by an Initial Advice Statement in 2011, which led to the declaration by the Coordinator-General of "significant project" status requiring an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under the requirements of the State Development and Public Works Organisations Act 1971

(Qld) . At the same time, the Australian Government determined the project to be a "controlled action" under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cwlth). The Australian Government determined that an EIS process was to be conducted under the bilateral agreement between the Australian and governments to satisfy both Commonwealth and Queensland legislation.

Terms of Reference for an Environmental Impact Statement were subsequently released in 2012.

Council, as the proponent of the project then proceeded to identify all relevant environmental issues and to undertake a thorough assessment of the potential impacts of those issues.

In Late 2014, the Environmental Impact Statement was released for public review and comment. After consideration of the public feedback, the Coordinator-General requested that the proponent undertake further investigations and publish additional information for further public review and comment.

The Additional Information to the EIS was released for public comment in late 2015.

Following the consideration of the public feedback, the Coordinator-General released his findings in the Coordinator-General's Evaluation Report on 18 May 2016, and recommended that the project proceed, subject to numerous conditions stated in the report.

In his assessment, the Coordinator-General stated that he considered that Council had "taken all reasonable steps to inform the community about the airport expansion, prior to and during the EIS process".

Following the Coordinator-General’s approval to proceed, it was necessary to prepare and submit applications for twenty-three separate permits, authorities and approvals from various federal, state and local government agencies.

The most significant of these was the Environmental Authority (EA) required to dredge sand from the Spitfire Realignment Shipping Channel at the northern end of Moreton Bay and to place that sand on the runway alignment utilising hydraulic placement methods.

The project has delivered the scope as scheduled, and to the standard and quality that was planned.

Innovation As mentioned earlier, both the domestic fleet of aircraft, and the newer more fuel efficient wide bodied aircraft favoured by the world’s airlines for medium haul international flights require a runway that is 45 metres wide, centred in a 300 metre wide runway strip.

The current runway is only 30 metres wide and is centred in a 150 metre wide runway strip, which places limitations on the type of aircraft capable of operating through the Sunshine Coast Airport.

The new runway, taxiways and aprons have been constructed to the exacting standards of the CASA Manual of Standards Part 139 and the ICAO Annexure 14 for new runways and is now capable of accommodating the current domestic fleet with no restrictions, as well as a large range of the newer wide bodied aircraft up to the and the Airbus A350.

In addition to meeting the new standards, the project also included some innovative enhancements that are considered to deliver advantages for ongoing operations.

These include a new digital interface in the Air Traffic Control Tower to enable Traffic Controllers to control the Airport Ground Lighting through the use of touch screens, and the first use in Queensland of trapezoidal grooving of the runway surface.

The trapezoidal grooving prolongs the life of the asphalt pavement by reducing the potential for asphalt creep to close the grooves, thereby minimising regular high pressure water jet cleaning and a reduction in the likelihood of dislodgement of the groove shoulders to form Foreign Object Debris on the runway.

In addition, aerial laser survey was used to identify trees that penetrated the Obstacle Limitation Surfaces on the approach to the runway and to control the selective trimming of those trees to provide a compliant runway approach.

The Aerial laser survey was also used to provide a digitised ground surface model on a monthly basis to enable progress to be tracked and what-if scenarios to be considered as opportunities arose.

Sourcing of the material for the runway embankment by dredging from the Moreton Bay marine sand deposits allowed a much faster rate of placement and removed the alternative road haulage from the local road network. To have delivered the volume of sand that was delivered in the timeframe that was achieved would have required a fully loaded truck and dog trailer combination to arrive at the site every minute of the hour for twenty four hours a day over approximately two months – a task that would clearly not have been achievable.

The delivery of the project was also innovative in that it involved Early Contractor Involvement whilst a dedicated designer worked directly with Council’s project team to develop a Principal’s Reference Design to approximately 60% status. Shortlisted contractors then tendered to complete the design using Council’s designers under a novated contract arrangement and then undertake the construction.

This process allowed the timeframe leading up to the commencement of construction to be shortened thereby ensuring that the project could be delivered within the originally identified timeframe, despite having lost almost twelve months in having to undertake a second round of information gathering and public consultation during the EIS process.

The Design and Construct Contract was then administered by an external Principal’s Representative and the quality was verified by an Independent Certifier.

Undoubtedly one of the more innovative features of the project was the method of financing a project that was forecast to be almost ten times more costly than any individual project that the Sunshine Coast Council had ever undertaken in its history.

This involved a competitive bid process by a number of bidding consortiums to secure the rights to operate the existing airport until the new runway was completed, and then to operate the new facility for the balance of a ninety year lease term.

This process yielded sufficient funds to cover the entire cost of the project. The project has been funded in the first place by receipts from the initial transfer of the existing airport operations to the successful commercial partner together with borrowings from the Federal and State Governments. Upon completion of the project, the Airport operators will then make a second payment which will provide sufficient funds to retire the debt without the need to allocate rate payer funds.

Stakeholder Engagement The stakeholder engagement associated with this project spanned ten years, commencing with the Sunshine Coast Airport Master Plan in late 2005.

This involved a targeted approach to the airline industry, airport tenants and state and federal government agencies. In April 2006, engagement was extended to involve the Sunshine Coast community, with feedback on the Master Plan sought during the period 15 June to 14 August 2006.

In adopting the Master Plan in September 2007, Council acknowledged that an overwhelming majority of the community did not support further development of the existing runway. The clearly preferred option was to develop a new runway with a general south-east to north-west orientation, designated Runway 13/31. The final alignment was altered marginally on the basis of community submissions.

Work commenced on the development of the EIS after community feedback on the Terms of Reference had been received in early 2012. Stakeholder engagement continued throughout the EIS process and culminated in the release of the draft EIS for public comment between 29 September and 13 November 2014.

Following consideration of that feedback by both Council and the Coordinator-General, the EIS process was extended to allow for further investigation and the provision of further information to the public for a second review from 2 to 30 November 2015.

As a result of the public consultation, Sunshine Coast Council undertook to deliver sixty three proponent commitments to address issues of concern raised by the community.

The engagement associated with just the EIS process alone was extensive and comprehensive.

It involved paid advertisements in state and national newspapers and in the twelve local newspapers.

Radio and television advertising was placed with local radio and television stations during peak hours.

A letterbox drop of 32,000 information bulletins to residents was undertaken in the area from 20 kms north to 10 kms south of airport.

In addition to paid advertising, there was also extensive editorial/ feature coverage in local print, radio, TV media and on-line.

Council representatives also presented an outline of the information and advice as to how to access the information at twelve community group meetings, to all seven local Members of Parliament, at six community meetings, three community information sessions and pop-ups at six shopping centres across the Sunshine Coast.

The Additional Information to the EIS was subsequently advertised through the same channels as the EIS as well as on social media and through a public meeting and a business briefing.

In approving that the project proceed, the Coordinator-General stated in his Evaluation Report - "I consider that SCRC has taken all reasonable steps to inform the community about the airport expansion, prior to and during the EIS process”.

Community and Economic Contribution The strategic objective for the expansion project is to stimulate and support the growing Regional Economy of the Sunshine Coast. The new runway will be a critical enabler in the transition of the regional economy from a predominantly inwards focussed supplier of goods and services to a substantially more active participant in the global economy.

In addition, the new runway will open up new opportunities to grow tourism within the region. The longer, wider runway will allow the wide-body Code E aircraft favoured by the world’s airlines for medium haul international flights to operate. This will not only allow the regional community to reach the rest of Australia with direct flights, but also to reach out to new international markets in Asia and beyond.

The wide-body medium haul aircraft bring the additional benefit of being able to carry international freight in the cargo hold while still carrying a full complement of passengers to any south-east Asian port.

This will generate opportunities for the export of high value perishable goods to these destinations directly from the Sunshine Coast, rather than exporting through Brisbane with significant time and transport cost savings.

There are also community benefits in relation to the impacts of aircraft noise. Aircraft using the existing runway over the years have been required to transit overhead of most of the Sunshine Coast’s eastern suburbs between Currimundi and Coolum, comprising some of the more densely populated areas of the coast.

The orientation of the new runway will mean that aircraft will overfly much less densely populated areas and far fewer people will be likely to experience aircraft noise at intrusive levels as the airport grows into the future. It is conservatively estimated that the number of existing dwellings that benefit from the reorientation of the runway will exceed 5,300 based on traffic projections for 2040.

In an effort to quantify the economic benefits, an assessment of the impacts on the Gross Regional Product (GRP) was undertaken using an Input Output economic model. This analysis was based on the contribution of each industry group to the regional economy, and in particular the GRP contributed by each employee within each industry group.

The analysis indicated the increase in GRP as a result of the new runway would amount to $4.1 billion by 2040.

The analysis also indicated that 2,230 additional full time jobs would be created by 2040.

During the construction of the project, more than 1.3 million labour hours will have been created, with more than $120 million having been spent on local suppliers. These figures actually exceed the forecasts made during the planning stages for the project.

During the planning stage of the project, a cost benefit analysis was undertaken to ascertain the benefit that would be created compared with the capital cost. This identified that the ratio of benefit to cost would be approximately 2.45, with a sensitivity analysis indicating a possible range of 1.43 to 2.83 depending on traffic projections.

This was based on a project forecast direct cost of AUD(2014) $232 million (AUD(2020) $347 million) and considered both direct and indirect impacts and quantified travel savings, accident savings, pollution savings and consumer surplus offset by ongoing operational costs.

The final project direct cost is below the original estimate in AUD(2014). Council’s exposure to ongoing operational costs have been quarantined through the innovative long term lease of the airport with two initial fixed payments and an ongoing return on gross revenue.

The only remaining variable is the benefit stream, which, even at the lower end of the predictions represented an attractive return on investment.

While a validation of the benefit stream is not possible this early in the life of the project, it is clear that there has been an impact on the short to medium term passenger projections as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. However, there appears to be no reason to suggest that passenger levels will not rebound over time.

Prior to the pandemic, Sunshine Coast Airport had been Australia’s fastest growing regional airport for several years by a significant margin, regularly returning double digit year on year compound growth.

The Sunshine Coast is fortunate to have numerous competitive advantages, from both business and recreational perspectives that will assist in generating demand in the future.

Regulatory Environment and Environmental Impact Management Through the EIS process, a wide range of potential environmental impacts were identified and analysed, and management plans established to mitigate or minimise the impacts, or offsets identified to address residual impact.

Areas of the site that had not previously been cleared for sugar cane retained remnant vegetation characterised by low-lying areas and seasonally moist conditions and included Melaleuca forest, closed heath and a small area of open forest.

The site is bordered to the north and south by sections of the Mt Coolum National Park.

Ground Parrots (Pezoporus wallicus wallicus) listed as Vulnerable under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 are known to occur near the existing runway. Various species of wallum frogs including the Wallum Froglet(Crinia tinula) and the Wallum Froglet (Litoria freycineti) which are both listed as Vulnerable under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 exist in the habitat along drain lines and in localised depressions on the site. The Wallum Sedgefrog, (Litoria olongburensis), listed as Vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is also found on the site.

The Mt Emu She-oak (Allocasuarina emuina), listed as Endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 was also located within a small portion of the site, adjacent to a similar sized population in the National Park.

Three Matters of National Environmental Significance were identified as potentially impacted by the project. These were

• Wetlands of International Importance • Listed threatened species and communities, and • Listed migratory species

As an integral component of the Coordinator-General’s approval of the project, stated and imposed conditions were included in relation to these environmental matters.

A Biodiversity Offset Strategy was developed outlining the measures to be undertaken to mitigate or minimise the impacts, with offsets identified for residual impacts. These were formalised through relevant agreements with the regulatory authority.

They include replacement habitat of over 65 Ha, enhanced habitat of 8 Ha and more than 40 Ha in a conservation corridor linking the northern and southern sections of the Mt Coolum National Park.

Approximately 4.8 Ha of Mt Emu She-oak forest was identified for translocation to an alternate location within the overall site.

The approvals associated with the mitigations and offsets require ongoing monitoring of the planned activities for up to 20 years after the completion of the construction phase of the project.

The timing of certain activities was also constrained to avoid times of the year or season that species were breeding. For example, the dredging activity could not take place between 1 November and 31 March in any year.

Ongoing surveys have already indicated that significant success has been achieved in the habitat enhancement activities, with recruitments to both the Wallum Frog and Ground Parrot populations since the original surveys were conducted.

In terms of legislation and regulation, the nature of the work required consideration of thirteen relevant acts or regulations administered by the Commonwealth and twenty-one relevant acts administered by the State of Queensland.

Twenty-three separate approvals, authorisations or permits were required to enable the work to proceed. In all nearly 300 imposed conditions, stated conditions, recommendations and proponent commitments evolved through the regulatory processes.

The most significant was the Environmental Authority required to undertake the Environmentally Relevant Activity associated with dredging and hydraulically placing marine sand from the northern portion of Moreton Bay.

Project Management The Project Management of the project was divided into two components

• Project Management of Planning and the preparation of the EIS, and • Project Management of Delivery. This paper focuses primarily on the management of the Delivery component

For the earlier Project Management of the Planning, Council outsourced the Project Management of the planning activities including the preparation of the EIS to suitably qualified consultants.

The activities undertaken by the consultant Project Managers were monitored and reviewed by Council employees directly.

Once the project had been approved by the Coordinator-General, Council appointed a Project Director to manage the Project Delivery and act as the Principal to the contract. The Project Director established and resourced a relatively small team of qualified and experienced staff to manage the project through to completion.

This small team was augmented by the engagement of consultants for specialist activities as required.

An integral component of this process, was the preparation of a comprehensive Project Management Plan. This plan includes guidance on the Background, Approvals, Objectives, Scope, Assumptions, and Governance under the Project Charter.

It details the project Organisational Structure, the Roles and Responsibilities and includes a RASCI Matrix to inform the various interfaces associated with such a complex project.

The requirements and processes associated with the following project management activities were covered in detail in the Plan.

• Scope • Cost • Schedule • Risk

• Change Management • Procurement • Quality • HSE • Business Disruption • Operational Readiness • Communication • Probity Risk and Cost Management are reviewed and reported at least on a monthly basis, with a formal budget review feeding into Council’s financial management system on a quarterly basis. As significant risks were identified, an ad-hoc risk assessment was undertaken and measures were taken to manage potential financial impacts.

Council’s Project Management Online platform was used for all internal record keeping and project cost profiling and reporting.

The project schedule was maintained on a Prima-Vera P6 platform.

A comprehensive Cost Management process separately tracked Contractor costs and ancillary works package costs, together with Project Management costs, including variations. These were then amalgamated into a whole of project report, detailing past financial years costs, current financial year costs and estimated final cost. A dashboard report was developed to inform Senior Management within Council.

Consultants were engaged to undertake the role of Principal’s Representative, to administer the contractual obligations and provide directions to the Contractor on the Principal’s behalf and Independent Certifier, to verify and certify quality in accordance with the Scope of Works and Technical Criteria.

Risk Management on this project has been especially important, as a legacy contamination issue arose after construction commenced. A combination of changing government agency guidelines and improved testing techniques resulted in the identification of very low level PFAS contamination. As the guidelines became more stringent over time, and testing techniques could detect lower and lower concentrations, the project team was forced to address requirements imposed by the government regulator that did not exist when the project commenced.

The team has identified mitigations and solutions that have been successful in allowing the project to continue in an environmentally sustainable and responsible manner.

Another issue that has required significant attention during the delivery of the project has been that of communications with the general public.

With the extensive initial public consultation associated with the project having been conducted between 2006 and 2015, some sectors of the community were no longer fully aware of the project and what it entailed. Considerable community concern was expressed when Airservices Australia

(AA) released information about the new flight paths that would be required to service the new runway alignment.

Despite the fact that the proposed flight paths had been made available in great detail to the public during the EIS process sections, some sections of the community sought to object to the proposals when AA reintroduced the information to the public to advise that the proposed flight paths were about to be activated. This was despite the fact that AA had actually made some very minor amendments to the paths to reduce impacts where possible.

This required considerable effort on the part of the team to respond to community concerns with both the process and the outcome.

All of this has been achieved with a very small team from within Council and the judicious use of external consultants with the required expertise. The team assumed responsibility for the procurement of the design consultant and ultimately the construction contractor and the management of the delivery process including numerous ancillary contracts that ran in parallel to the primary contract.

A total full time team of less than twenty persons (internal and external) has successfully managed this complex project worth almost $330 million dollars, to the extent that it was delivered on time and within the original estimated cost.

The Future By providing much needed connectivity both domestically and internationally, this project will underpin the transformation of the Sunshine Coast into a mature economic region of the future. In fact, such connectivity is essential if the Sunshine Coast is to realise its potential and be counted among the leading regions in Australia.

Acknowledgements The Author wishes to acknowledge the support provided by Council – both elected representatives and the Executive Leadership Team through the course of the project.

He also acknowledges the considerable effort and commitment invested by the project delivery team members.

References • Coordinator-General of Queensland, (May 2016), Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project – Coordinator-General’s Evaluation Report on Environmental Impact Statement, Brisbane, State of Queensland, Department of State Development, May 2016. • Sunshine Coast Regional Council, (2014), Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project – Environmental Impact Statement, , Sunshine Coast Regional Council. • Sunshine Coast Regional Council, (2015), Sunshine Coast Airport Expansion Project – Additional Information to the Environmental Impact Statement, Maroochydore, Sunshine Coast Regional Council.