A Port Augusta Coastal Homes Association spokesperson has demanded a position from the Port Augusta City Council on BHP Billiton's proposed unloading facility.

Bruce Smith's request comes in the lead-up to a BHP Billiton-initiated meeting to be held tomorrow night with the association.

"As a ratepayer and as my elected representatives on the local council I demand that they take a stance on this and be there not they tell us why they won't make a stance," Mr Smith said.

BHP Billiton last month released a response to questions asked of it by the association, mostly pointing answers to the Olympic Dam expansion Environmental Impact Statement, expected to be released later this year.

Mr Smith said he was not expecting the meeting to reveal any new information.

"If you go by BHP Billiton's track record, they'll say a lot and tell us nothing," he said.

"Maybe this is just of putting a bit of water on the bushfire."

The association has been rallying against the proposal since it was first made known to residents of the shacks area in May last year.

The proposal has been suggested as an unloading facility near Port Augusta's shacks area to facilitate the expansion of Olympic Dam Mine at Roxby Downs.

The facility will be covered in the impact statement, as well as a haul corridor from Port Augusta to the mine.

Mr Smith said he was "extremely upset" that the council had decided not to make a statement regarding the proposed facility.

"Nobody has come up and asked me, 'What do you think about me putting this … in (your) backyard?'" he said.

"The local council is my elected representatives who I voted for … I was looking for them to take a stance on this … they know how we feel."

City Manager John Stephens said that the council had been feeling the pressure from the association.

"We will be in a far better position to make a statement after Thursday," he said.

He said that BHP had "progressed their thinking" about the unloading facility but if the results of the statement showed a minor detriment to the gulf, the council would object.

Mr Smith said he believed that if the council waited for the statement to be released, it would be too late for it to make a difference.

"Once the (statement) comes out it's a done and dusted deal," he said.

"(They'll have) the EIS to fall back on … he who pays the piper gets to play the tune."

Mr Stephens does not see it that way.

"We are not going to roll over and let them tickle our bellies," he said.

"If that was your home and that is what you like and that is who you are, no one would like to be pushed out,"

To find out what happens at tomorrow's meeting, see next week's Transcontinental.