There is now EPA regulations in place to allow Hazardous Waste into Municipal Landfill's that can qualify as a "Best practice Landfill". This could apply to any Municipal Landfill in any Suburb, Town or City in Victoria (Including Mildura).

I am currently objecting in the City of Casey against SITA for changes to their Landfill permit that would remove the local Council from the position of Responsible Authority, replacing the Council with reference to an EPA licence.

Well so this looks innocent enough and possibly the most responsible thing to do. But there is a slight catch to this statement. The EPA has changed the regulations relating to the Municipal Landfills.

If you have a look at the listed documents, you will see that any qualifying Municipal Landfill is able to accept Hazardous Waste. The descriptions below the categories that could be accepted and are as per EPA documents 1040, 1062 and 996.

Category C(1) wastes include wastes that are highly odorous and/or are dusty. These wastes are largely food processing wastes.
Category C(2) wastes include:
• prescribed industrial wastes with low contaminant levels which are largely from industrial or manufacturing activities (these wastes will be referred to as low-hazard industrial wastes)
• treated (or immobilised) prescribed industrial waste which, prior to treatment, was a Category B waste (these wastes will be referred to as Category C immobilised waste)
• low-level contaminated soils
• waste asbestos from industrial sources, or that has been removed by a licensed asbestos removalist, that has been double wrapped in plastic sheets as required by EPA Publication 364, The transport and disposal of waste asbestos.

The Hampton Park Progress Association is objecting to the proposed changes to the Permit for the Hallam Road Tip. The Amendment to their permit would allow Hazardous Waste to be dumped at this site.

The Health and Safety of Hampton Park, Lynbrook and Cranbourne North resident is at risk. We have residential housing sharing their fence line with the landfill, others just a couple of hundred metres.

Councils must retain the right to control of what can be accepted.

My community has a hazardous waste treatment plant operating just 500 metres from a cafe.

Despite the current government's election promise to relocate this plant, with its shabby technology and after a large protest rally, they have failed to do so.

The hazardous waste plant "treats" (amongst other substances)arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, cobalt and copper compounds, cyanide, chromium, fluorine, lead, mercury, perchlorates, metal and plastic wastes, fly ash, plasticisers, drums of contaminated residues of a controlled waste, hydrocarbons, pesticide solutions and contaminated soils ClassIV or V.

Class IV or V in my state is deemed intractable waste and must be interred in a compound for radioactive waste. However, these solids are dumped at a Class 2 and 3 landfill along with everything else.

Councils when accepting the above hazardous wastes for landfill, simply perform "grab" samples, a practice this community views with much skepticism.

The EPA together with its Department of Environment are the regulators and are pathetically incompetent. Its senior members have currently been mentioned in the Corruption and Crime Commission's investigation into senior bureaucrats and politicians' behaviour over the influence of industry lobbyists.

If Sita treats the hazardous waste for landfill, I would suggest (if not already done so) you obtain the Conditions of Licence and their Annual Report which should give you a precise decription of the categories you mention and the annual tonnage sent to landfill.

I regret to say that Appeals in this state have been a waste of time. I recall when the Environment Minister upheld a community appeal, the Dept. of Environment simply ignored her determinations.

FOIs have revealed that these departments treat community complaints with contempt and during any appeal the department acts as a defence for the pollutant industry, continually duping their ministers since ministers rarely have the required background to understand the chemistry of air pollutants.

EPA's were formed to protect the environment and public health. They have failed. The endemic culture within these departments is to protect pollutant industries.

In answer to your question: "Can the EPA be trusted with Hazardous Waste?"

That's a firm NO from me.

After sending this info about the EPA's handiwork to every Council in Victoria, I am now getting emails from some, thanking me and acknowledging that the issue is something to watch. It also shows that they were not fully aware of the EPA's work on Hazardous Waste.

I don't blame the Councils, I believe the EPA has not told the Councils everything the should have. It's a bit like only passing on what they really have to and leaving unsaid all the nasty stuff.

It is becoming very clear that the new regulations have been brought in surreptitiously and without the proper Public and Municipal consultation.

I am not too sure where to go with this, as the placement of Hazardous Waste in Municipal landfill has to be stopped. I imagine my next step will come when SITA apply to take up the new EPA regulations and try to put the Hazardous Waste in the Hallam road landfill. Then we need to take it too the people.

2H

I don't believe that the EPA can force a council to accept the wastes you refer to.

The normal procedure is that a council who wishes to participate, must apply and meet the EPA criteria to be licenced. The landfill must be constructed in accordance with the EPA's directives.

Unless matters differ greatly to my state, I would imagine that the council has applied to take the wastes. Therefore, perhaps you should redirect your concerns to the council.

The Victorian EPA invited interested parties and stakeholders to comment on the relevant regulations last year and the comment period closed on 30/6/06.

Unfortunately, EPA's have a habit of not widely publishing their invitations to appeal or comment! They prefer to keep the masses ill-informed!

Those contractors and councils which become licensed to take the waste must report periodically to the EPA who should be conducting random inspections of the operations at landfill sites.

It may be of interest to you to enquire with the council as to which wastes they have been accepting at their landfill prior to the new regulations and whether they have applied to the EPA for the amended categories.

I suspect the current wastes accepted for landfill will be similar to the new ones.

Newly named categories - same hazards as before!

I appreciate the comments ‘dickie’. However, I am already talking about this to council and they had not realised that they were about to approve the Amended permit, deleting the Council as the Responsible Authority and replacing it with the EPA licence.

As soon as the Council is removed from the Permit, I believe SITA (in this case) would only needed to apply to the EPA to qualify as a Best Practice Landfill and they would automatically be eligible to allow waste that the EPA regulation permits, "Hazardous Waste Class C" etc.

With the Council as RA, it would have to be advertised locally, as against the EPA’s secretive advertising, giving us a chance to defeat this.

The Council only letter dropped 70 homes and advertised in one local paper, because they had not realized the implication. We have approx 20,000 residents within a couple of km from the site. The Officers have now amended their stand and will refuse to relinquish control.

My main reason for pushing this issue is that it will affect every landfill that meets the EPA Best practice conditions and could happen without public consultation. I believe it has already started with a handful of sites, such as Bulla.

2H

I omitted to add that municipal wastes must be treated somewhere.

Unfortunately, EPAs aligned with pollutant industries, fail to ever consider proximity of landfills or pollution to residential areas and the industry aligned EPA's considerations are always with the polluters where profits are paramount and communities must suffer.

Perhaps you should lobby the council to move the landfills to a more remote area. Despite the EPA regulations, this is the council's responsibility.

You may succeed where we have failed!

OK 2H

So where has the council been dumping these wastes you refer to in the past?

I'd be really interested to know.

I presume that the day to day operations, if the more stringent regulations apply, will be performed by council employees and it's environmental officers who will be obliged to test for contaminants and accept or reject waste, prior to landfill burial.

Dickie
I didn't mention this because is is a seperate yet related issue and would detract form the current issue.

The other nearby tip is Lyndhurst, one of 2 Toxic Waste tips in Melbourne. Previously it only had a life of a couple of years, now the Government has decided that they should continue to 2020.

The only way that could happen is to convieniently offload some of the waste elsewhere, So, where do you think they want to send it at little extra cost, why lets all send it to local tips and allow Lyndhurst to talk less waste in total but at much higher ratios than before.

The landfill can't move, it's a big hole in the ground that was only ever to be Municipal Waste.

The EPA would control the monitoring, the change would take the Council right out of any control. I believe the EPA at the Lyndhurst Toxic tip uses self monitoring by the operators.......

Dickie, I was a tiptruck driver in the early eighties,dumping stuff opposite Tullamarine airport across the Bulla rd. They were dumping foul smelling affluent there 35meters away were I was dumping fill.Driving south on the property I noticed they were building a huge concrete pit approx. thirty meters deep x 15meters diameter. I think they are dumping hazardous fluid waste there.Maybe they are pumping it after treatment under the road to fill airplane tankers only across from there to spray out above Melbourne and surrounds. I do have pictures of airial spraying!

I am a trade union official trained in the removal of this stuff, please do not trust the EPA not workchoices not the local council, not hang on do you know fire fighters turn up at a fire without protection and walk in to a building full of it? on fire? do not trust your local fire brigade .
I am a fire fighter do not please trust us!
trust no one but beleive this in a suberb of Newcastle some months ago next to a school a building burnt down, full of it!
Fireys worked in it kids ran all over 300mm of it cars drove through it .
EPA told us its not us see the fire brigade ,who told us see work cover, who told us see the council who told us see the fireys.
It ook 10 days! ten days of exposure to see a great man and wonderfull lady in that concil say ENOUGHT! and do the one thing we begged for put a fence around it.
In 20 years some kid from this area may die a dreadful death, trust no one .
And if they work for goverment? be very afraid.

Belly, hazardous waste management should be one of the largest issue for citizens in this country. Most don't care!

In 2001, the government managed Bellevue hazardous waste site in WA erupted into flames. Massive explosions made this one of the biggest chemical fires in Aust.

Huge white fireballs erupted with thick acrid smoke from the compound. The DOH, DOE and DME, responsible for regulating surely knew that this operation did not comply with its licence and only 2 workers were trained in chemical management.

It's estimated that at the time of the fire, the U/G tanks held between 500,000 and 1,000,000 litres of hazardous waste, 500 metres from a school.

During operations, workers were asked to mix unknown chemicals and acids with perilous results. High levels of chlorinated chemical emissions were found 200 metres from the site - including the very lethal dioxin.

Professional firefighters, racing to the scene of the explosion were ill-equipped to deal with a chemical fire.

A similar haz. waste site at Brookdale WA, managed by the Dept. of Environment has the same disgraceful history of appallingly managed hazardous compounds.

To silence the Brookdale residents, the Minister advised that Brookdale would no longer accept PCB's and perchloroethylene and would eventually close.

This much was true since almost the whole of Perth's hazardous waste is now transported to Kalgoorlie for treatment and dumped at a local landfill. Only 10% of hazardous waste treated in Kalgoorlie belongs to the Kalgoorlie area.

Governments are well aware that cancers and DNA altering diseases from exposure to organic chemical emissions have a long latency period and the source of subsequent cancers is virtually impossible to prove.

Three years ago, the WA cabinet endorsed a committee, set up to make recommendations for safe hazardous waste plants, to protect citizens.

Environment Minister McGowan last year, for no reason, sacked the committee.

Has he been influenced by lobbyists for the current, shabbily operated but profitable H/W industry? I think so!

This is what happens when you put lawyers in charge of the environment and public health.

dickie I agee 22 years as first on scene at truck roll overs taught me a lot.
History will show I buried ten tons of such waste from such a truck for the NSW RTA under orders!
Later after a fish kill in nearby water ways they said nothing had ever been buried there!
6 workers from that scene died of cancer early in life.
Now as a union official I have seen a building knocked down with machinery ,piled up in a heap, reloaded on to trucks, taken just out of town and set on fire!
Never trust goverment of its hildren with such matter!
That building was 45% asbestos!

eftfnc

The Bracks government has promised to "phase out" the hazardous waste plants at Tullamarine and Lynbrook.

They also plan to increase the landfill levies from $30/tonne to $130/tonne.

Seems Brack's "phasing out" programme is to relocate treated, hazardous wastes to other landfills, as 2H has advised. That way, he will impress some communities who simply haven't the foggiest idea on how hazardous waste is managed by governments and industry.

The increase in levies supposedly forces waste generators to reduce their wastes and perhaps treat it on-site. However, it also increases the risk for unscrupulous generators and treatment plants to dump their wastes covertly, to avoid paying the increased costs.

Bear in mind also, that levies raise a significant amount of revenue for local councils.

The current categories 2H mentions will increase as time goes on and he will find that eventually all hazardous wastes could be dumped at his local landfill, such as the chemical residues I have mentioned in my first post.

Having said that and with the proximity of the current landfills to residential areas, I firmly believe that all communities should treat and inter their own waste. Why should my community's hazardous waste be dumped on another community?

Which brings me to the question of the proximity of most current plants and landfills to residential areas.

These facilities reveal the incompetence of past and current governments (local and state) and their inability to forsee the future ramifications of their actions in contaminating residential areas.

Waste management and landfill operators are very reluctant to incur transport costs to more remote areas for their self-regulated operations and have powerful lobbyists to influence senior bureaucrats and officials. As a result, communities are force-fed the most toxic chemical emissions known.

After many complaints and appeals in my community over the vile odours emanating from the hazardous waste plant, the EPA simply instructed the plant to mask its pond odours with yet another chemical. Residents are blithely unaware they are still ingesting dangerous chemical emissions since they can't smell them.

Senior bureaucrats are extremely adept at exploiting public gullibility!

The NSW RTA site is right on the edge of the Paific highway on the mid north coast of NSW .
Trees still die any pace close to it and water runs of into the lake.
Never trust goverment or its children my last post should have said.
And trust council least of all! council watched as untrained bush fire personell cleaned up? the asbestos site demolished by machines.
Future deaths can be asured after my 3 highlighted storeys but goverments only insure they look blameless.
It should be noted RTA took tests of the blood of up to 16 workers from that site ,mine too and 5 years later we had never been told the results ten ton of poison two containers of radio active isotope and 8 ton of dried food! on one truck! mixed on the road!
never trust goverment.

Now this article is too much of a coincidence to pass off;

Last week a friend had received a report back from the E P A ; stating their supposed lab findings in Chemical / Hazardous substances detection /Volume;

He did not have a clue what the report was supposed to represent; so we found out;
Then asked the supposed generators of the report to explain it in a language people could identify and understand- There were no answers- they did not understand- typical Bureaucratic guess work and clueless ;

For what I could find out, it resembled more of a launch pad in Huston Texas than anything close Australia has to offer as an Explanation;

The good part of this saga is thank heavens they are Government programmed Automatons and not Nuclear Lab Physicist’s : Or then we would be in serious trouble.

Often as we see some one with a storey to tell we think its just his/her hobby horse and it may not be true.
Well mine is and twenty more could be told , you must never trust a goverment report, and not a council one.
Just 5 months ago the RTA had a contractor drilling holes in that dump site, concened they may not remember a union delgate rang me.
Knowing I was both there and a never paid victim of it I informed the official who works in that RTA area.
He was told no work was being conducted there! no drilling!
And council? past worklife in uncovering ilegale dumping of raw sewage in street gutters was placed before them.
Evdence it was takeing place here , not denied by council.
But no action! why? because the perpertrator always aledges council inspectors are biased against him!
never expect a goverment department to act with honor.

At this moment am trying to expose what the EPA has done with Hazardous Waste being put in Municipal Landfill and at the same time trying to prevent SITA from changing their Council Permit to remove the Council as the Responsible Authority.

I do not trust the EPA, but I believe that with Councils although we don't allways get the decision that we believe is correct, We do at least have a chance to object and take it higher if need be. The Council would have to advertise the change to allow Hazardous Waste. We would also get chance to organise Public Meetings, which is almost certainly going to be the case For Hampton Park and surronding area's.

On the other hand, the EPA guy told me that the EPA advertised the changes to the regulations on their Website and in Industry related media. Of course we as mere residents check out the EPA website every week....

In the first inst. we must ensure that Councils retain some level of control over Landfill's, we may at least get a say.

Your faith in council may be ok not in mine, in the 1970,s I wandered the streets just of Canton beach in Toukly NSW.
My job without being seen was to stuff bags full of wet cement and clay into homes storm water pipes.
On such a summers day as this no rain, returning the next day many nearly all lawns would be wet with raw sewage that had been bound for the concrete drain and 100 yards later the lake ,right at the tourist tables.
Council stopped it overnight driven by clean water the pumps are know as t type twin sins on us all.
Now I live in an area know for hep outbreaks ,council acts only sometimes
On such a day as this only the smell can be seen, after rain? into the river with about 20 kids swimming in it!
We need far better than public servant council workers never trust them.

It isn't about having faith in Council, it's a matter that they would have to publicly advertise as against the EPA who only advertise in their own little world.
We may still land up fighting Council if it does not go our way. But, we will be ready for it and have a chance to use a Public Meeting to gain support.

Anyone would be forgiven if they observed the N SW government’s tendency to move away from Fascism and towards a Total State based Communism;
The distinct difference is the “State”; is what exists and Fascism is a selected Elite Lootery that controls the supposed commercial mechanisms as well as Control the “State”;
There are some ominous parallels forming in the cracks once again.
Your rights no longer exist, only the State and its Witch doctors tell you what is next on the agenda.

However Insane it is ; you got it?

Excerpts from today's Sunday Times on another stuff-up:

Seven WA councils shared the cost of building and running a $60 million dollar metropolitan waste, "state of the art" compost plant in Canning Vale.

A survey of 228 residents living within 1.6km of the facility confirmed that smell was a major issue.

Residents said the odours from the plant were unacceptably strong. The EPA has placed a temporary closure on the plant. So why did they approve it in the first place?

Jittery councillors question whether millions of dollars of ratepayers' money have been committed to a project that is destined to be a white elephant.

Air-pollution engineer Dave Finnie believed the plant, based on a US facility that had since closed after massive cost blowouts and odour problems, was doomed.

"To me it was almost like they built it not really knowing what they were doing", he said.

An unbudgeted $2.4 million upgrade to reduce odours led councils to seek an independent review of the operation. But the decision to award the tender to Quadro Pty Ltd has fuelled controversy.

Canning Melville Odour Action Group spokesman said Quadro senior staff were involved in establishing the plant.

"They are hardly going to bag their own technology" he said.

These plants cannot be established without the approval of the EPA (Dept Of Environment) where these councils are required to apply for licence renewals and must fit EPA "criteria." Some criteria - hey?

The EPA Act (Section 49) states that a person who emits an unreasonable emission from any premises, commits an offence. Why aren't the polluters prosecuted?

Which brings me to the recurring issue. Why did 7 councils agree to place a plant within close PROXIMITY to residential areas? And why did the EPA approve it?

So the polluter (as usual) will not pay, but the ratepayers will.

And even if the odour problem is resolved, how can one trust these tossers to efficiently separate dangerous toxic chemicals from the end product? You can't see them, smell them or hear them, therefore communities will continue to unwittingly ingest health damaging pollutants.

Belly

I believe you are entitled to a copy of your blood test.

If they want to play games and refuse you the results, you can obtain a copy through the Freedom of Information process - hopefully!

“That building was 45% asbestos!” Thanks Belly. Here in Qld Schools they promise
To remove the asbestos roofing government authorised to use in School buildings back in the 70’s, when I a lay person knew the stuff wrapped around water pipes would harm my children, as would the flakes coming off existing roofs and walls unless sealed with protective paints. Now they are making a start on removing such dangerous materials, but where do they dispose of them? I have horse stables nearby that were erected from the materials removed from a local residents roof.

Blood tests, I have had numerous, and they took mouth swabs also, and I still do not know why, nor what the blood test read. Much of these horror stories mentioned here should be shouted from the roof tops, on the papers front page headlines, and governments at all levels made to be accountable.

1 thing is 4 sure, that trio of slimes blair, bush turkey & howard can't b trusted with hazardous waste.

A 1996 UN Resolution banned DU (more appropriately known as U235 enrichment waste munitions) as a WMD; the UN Human Rights
Commission 2002 stated that US/UK use of DU violated The Hague
Conventions, the Geneva Protocol, the Nuremberg Principles, the
Charter of the UN, Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, etc.

" ... Depleted uranium weapons are an unacceptable threat to life,
a violation of international law, and an assault on human dignity.
We have an obligation to do what is right for our servicemen and women,for our children and our grandchildren, and for all citizens of the world. We must ban the use of depleted uranium in our military and worldwide; we must provide medical care to all DU casualties; and we must clean up all the places where we've used this poison that has the power to kill for countless generations, far into the future. ... "

– Dennis J. Kucinich

LJleBreton

I am in agreement with you. However, in Australia, all governments are culpable for the disgraceful handling of hazardous waste.

My state has a Labor government and they too should be incarcerated as should the Liberal government before them.

And despite the dire environmental situation, the handling of hazardous waste has worsened (if possible) with no regulations at all.

It's called "self regulation."

Believe me, all the inane sophistry your environmental department spews out is just that - lies and deception to exploit and confuse the masses whilst they defend and suck up to pollutant industries.

Unhappily, there are only three residents (including me) out of 30,000 who are fighting the senior bureaucrats over the uncontrolled hazardous waste emitted from all pollutant industries.

It is the bureaucrats who are controlling the pollies and the ill-informed, complacent masses!

Without people power, the problem will remain and these bureaucrats know this and exploit that fact to the max!

Can the EPA be trusted with Hazardous Waste?

We can agree that our own political system is full of Hazardous waste and I can't see them soon closing their Loot supplies to benefit anyone else other than their own depravity and Ineptitude.

The Judiciary is laced with the same equal corruption, so don’t depend on the Law to help; Statutes only assist the Looting process.
Thus the abundance of Witchdoctors to conjure up more propaganda and mythical potions to cash in on the guilt and the dumbing down process.

Sounds a bit cynical; I know, but guess what?

This week I found updated documents on the EPA website, (see attached) that support my theory completely. Everything is falling into place for this to happen with many documents being updated.

As you will see below and in the attached files, there are already approximately 25 landfills in Victoria that receive prescribed industrial wastes and the list will only get bigger. I wonder if the EPA really cares about the people living next to the tip, as we have in Hampton Park.

The big question is:
Why are they introducing the ability to deposit Hazardous Waste into Municipal landfill, if they do not expect to use it?

Below are extracts from the documents.

1. DRAFT EPA PUBLICATION 448, CLASSIFICATION OF WASTES
Publication 448.2*
February 2007
EPA seeks comment on the Draft Classification of Wastes. Written submissions will be received at the following address until Monday, 5 March 2007.

Page 8
Management requirements
Category C (Contaminated soil) and Category B (Contaminated soil) can be accepted at a landfill or facility licensed by EPA to accept such waste.

2. DRAFT ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION (PRESCRIBED WASTE) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2007
Publication 1095
EPA Victoria, State Government of Victoria, February 2007

Page 2
“If you would like to discuss the proposed Regulations please contact EPA on the details below by Monday, 5 March 2007.

EPA is holding an information session on the regulatory changes and also changes to guidance for classifying contaminated soils on: 3 pm, 15 February 2007
(The document was only released on Feb 2nd – Tony)

3. INDUSTRIAL WASTE MANAGEMENT POLICY (PRESCRIBED INDUSTRIAL WASTE) PROGRESS REVIEW
Publication 994

Page 5
4. HOW ARE WE DOING?
There are approximately 25 landfills in Victoria that receive prescribed industrial wastes from off-site sources. The Tullamarine and Lyndhurst landfills are currently licensed to dispose of higher hazard wastes. The other landfills accept low hazard wastes (for example, low level contaminated soil or asbestos after it has been appropriately packaged) or wastes with impact on amenity (for example, odorous scallop shells).