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The Victorian Government’s wasted waste policy

By Harry Van Moorst - posted Thursday, 21 April 2005


Background

From Mildura to Swan Hill, north-west Victoria is gearing up for a massive fight against the government’s proposed “toxic dump” at Hattah/Nowingi, about 500km north-west of Melbourne.

Seven years earlier, in May 1998, more than 15,000 braved a cold Monday night at the Werribee Racecourse to forcefully tell the Kennett Government that they would fight the proposed “toxic dump” in Werribee. Ultimately successful, the communities actions paved the way for major policy reforms. Working with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and a government appointed advisory committee, the Werribee activists succeeded in getting bi-partisan support for a new policy that banned future land-filling of hazardous waste and for the first time established criteria for the siting of hazardous waste facilities.

By December 2000 these policies were promulgated and the scene was set for major improvements in hazardous waste management, including reduction, recycling and long-term containment. Waste would be stored in containment facilities, not landfill, sited in accordance with new siting criteria.

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Five years later there are still no contaminated soil recycling facilities, no long-term containment facilities and only marginal gains in hazardous waste minimisation. Instead of the promised reforms the government has approved extensions of the Tullamarine and Lyndhurst landfills to enable continued dumping of hazardous waste. What went wrong?

The scope of the problem

Each year Victorian industry produces about 120,000 tonnes of hazardous waste. This includes 30,000 - 40,000 tonnes of contaminated soils, much of which can be recycled, but at a cost. The rest is comprised of a range of wastes, some of which could be avoided, recycled, treated to be non-hazardous and some which has to be safely stored for an indefinite period. All this is practical, but again at a cost.

Traditionally this material has been dumped into landfill, mainly at Tullamarine and Lyndhurst. Landfill in Victoria is very cheap compared with more responsible waste management. The problem with cheap landfill is two-fold: it acts as a disincentive to developing more responsible, sustainable and safer technologies, and landfills inevitably leak into the environment. Even the US Environmental Protection Agency admitted in 1988 that, “Even the best liner and leachate collection system will ultimately fail due to natural deterioration … once the unit is closed, the bottom layer of the landfill will deteriorate over time and, consequently, will not prevent leachate transport out of the unit”.

In the US there are numerous leaking landfills contaminating groundwater and the surrounding environment. In the early 1990s the US Government was forced to set up a multimillion dollar “Superfund” to rehabilitate the worst of these leaking dumps, with mixed results at very high costs.

It is important that we understand the risk involved in the various types of hazardous waste: we should neither underestimate nor exaggerate the risk if we are to develop safe and effective management options. The mere mention of “toxic dumps” or “hazardous waste” creates substantial community angst. Perhaps previous tragedies, such as Love Canal and Bhopal, have made us fearful for our family’s health.

So how hazardous are these wastes? Some, such as PCBs, dioxins, various other organochloride compounds and various heavy metal wastes can be acutely dangerous to human and environmental health. These generally require considerable treatment before they can be safely stored. However much of the waste constitutes a chronic rather than acute risk. This means that while not creating an immediate health risk, protracted exposure even to small quantities, may lead to minor discomforts, such as skin or eye irritations, or to serious illnesses such as organ disease, cancer, fetal damage and nervous disorders. The risks to the environment can include toxicity to fish, bird and animal life as well as a substantial risk of toxic materials finding their way into the food chain thereby threatening human health.

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While debate continues over the extent of the risk it is recognised that we have very limited knowledge of the toxicity of many of these substances. Only a small proportion of the thousands of chemicals involved in industrial waste have been studied for their hazard to human or environmental health, and even fewer have been studied in association with other potentially catalytic or synergistic substances that could substantially increase the risk. In addition, the bulk of the standards established are based on potential impact to a healthy adult. The impact on children has only recently been recognised as requiring substantial additional work.

Despite limited knowledge and ongoing debate there is a broad consensus, reflected by government policy, that all potentially hazardous wastes need to be responsibly and safely managed, and better than we have in the past.

In light of this the government’s policy to prevent future land-filling of hazardous waste and to establish a highly engineered, totally safe, long-term containment facility for hazardous waste, is to be supported. It is the most responsible approach in Australia and will put Victoria ahead of most of the world in hazardous waste management. That is if the policy ever gets implemented.

The bureaucracy takes over

Since 2001 the government has entrusted the implementation of its hazardous waste policy to the EPA and Major Projects Victoria (MPV). The EPA is responsible for policy content including standards and regulations while MPV provides the required infrastructure such as soil recycling and long-term containment facilities. The EPA developed a series of classification standards, treatment specifications and facility performance requirements. It consulted with industry, environment groups, scientists and the community to ensure broad agreement in the slow but steady implementation of the policy.

In contrast, MPV engaged in a roller-coaster ride of ill-conceived, poorly timed and inappropriate attempts to find sites for the proposed facilities. Initially directed by an Advisory Committee, MPV asked industry to nominate sites for a soil recycling facility. Not surprisingly these proposals were overwhelmingly inappropriate - for example within 500m of a kindergarten or with 10,000 residents within the proposed buffer zone - and led to major community outrage. Increasingly critical of the MPV’s approach, the Advisory Committee commenced its own study using GIS computer mapping databases to locate more suitable sites.

In late 2002 the new Minister for Major Projects, Peter Batchelor, dismissed the Advisory Committee and took the whole process behind closed doors. In secret, MPV continued the GIS study commenced by the committee and in late 2003 provided the Minister with a list of three sites for the Long Term Containment Facility (LTCF) that were described as being “the most suitable in Victoria”.

In November, without warning, several farm owners in Baddaginnie, between Violet Town and Benalla; Pittong, past Ballarat; and Tiega, in north-west Victoria, awoke to a letter from MPV advising them that their farm may be compulsorily acquired as the site for the LTCF. Amid widespread community opposition and strong support for the hapless farmers, the magnitude of MPV’s errors was uncovered.

It was soon established that one of the sites was located on a significant flood plain while another was subject to substantial groundwater and water table issues. Both these problems were evident from even a superficial site inspection or preliminary discussions with locals. The third site, at Tiega, was free of such problems but was 450km from Melbourne in the middle of productive farmland.

The question must be asked, how can productive family farms in areas that breach the government’s siting criteria be presented as constituting Victoria’s “three best sites”? Despite all efforts an answer has not been forthcoming. Furthermore the secrecy of the whole process remains, thwarting the effective implementation of the government’s policy.

Incompetence or sabotage?

Some people have questioned the competence of MPV and urged the Premier to intervene. However a handful of cynics have suggested that it may be more than just a case of bureaucratic incompetence. They point out that when the Minister dismissed the Advisory Committee, MPV appointed the manager of the Lyndhurst landfill, Rod McLellan, as project manager for the hazardous waste project. By employing a project manager committed to landfill, and then using consultants servicing the landfill industry, it was predictable that a landfill would be the outcome.

The cynics point out that it is a no-risk strategy for the industry: having their people on “the inside” they will achieve either a new landfill for which companies like the French owners of Lyndhurst, Sita, can put in their management bids, or the whole policy collapses due to “mismanagement” and community outrage and Lyndhurst will simply continue its existing highly profitable hazardous waste landfill.

From the frying pan into the fire

In April 2004, as a result of community pressure, the government withdrew the three sites and nominated a fourth at Hattah/Nowingi, about 500km north-west of Melbourne. In typical fashion the decision was made without consultation or justification and with grossly inadequate preliminary work. After considerable agitation MPV finally admitted that the Hattah site was chosen because it was on public land and was “similar to the Tiega site” which had “no major problems”. No additional studies had been undertaken although the site was adjacent to two environmentally significant areas: the Hattah-Kulkyne and Murray Sunset National Parks.

MPV went so far as to claim that, “Initial flora and fauna surveys indicate that the study area is unlikely to contain critical habitat of rare or endangered flora or fauna”. Yet it was well established that the whole area was part of such “critical habitat” and that a number of endangered species were known to inhabit the area. Indeed, even the Federal Government acknowledged the risk to endangered flora and fauna by intervening in August-September 2004 to make the MPV proposal a “controlled action” under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC). Such intervention only occurs where potential environmental significance is established.

The environmental significance of Hattah

To meet the environmental requirements of the EPBC Act, as well as state requirements for an Environmental Effects Statement (EES), MPV is required to prepare detailed studies of the potential environmental impact of the proposal. MPV employed environmental consultants, Biosis, to undertake the studies. Despite some significant methodological problems and timing issues in the Biosis study the initial results, released in December 2004, confirm what environmentalists have been saying all along. Biosis was forced to give the Hattah site the highest possible environmental value rating. Their report acknowledged that, “The diversity and abundance of fauna species and general absence of introduced species indicates that the study area supports an intact faunal assemblage as part of a functioning ecological community”.

The study documented the substantial number of indigenous species (135), including 5 species of state significance and 37 of regional significance, with introduced species (14). In addition there were 78 vertebrate species recorded, including 5 species of national significance listed under the EPBC Act: Mallee-fowl, Mallee emu-wren, greater long-eared bat, regent parrot and black-eared miner. Also documented were three additional species of national significance, four species of state significance and ten species listed as part of the threatened Mallee bird community under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

It would be difficult to find stronger evidence for protecting an area from a hazardous waste facility. Of course much of this evidence was available in various forms prior to the Biosis study and one only had to speak to local and regional experts to see how environmentally significant the site was. Indeed, it was obvious within a few days of the site’s proposal that the Government was jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. While the initial three sites were totally inadequate, the Hattah site was by far the most environmentally sensitive of the proposed sites. The environmental and legal obstacles will prove insurmountable and can only seriously delay - if not totally undermine - the government’s policy. Meanwhile the Lyndhurst landfill owners continue to smile all the way to the bank.

Landfill by stealth

As if this wasn’t sufficient to make the cynics scream “sabotage”, MPV simultaneously began a process of promoting a landfill design instead of the promised “containment facility”. Instead of initiating a transparent process for developing “innovative technology” for the LTCF, as promised by the Government, MPV employed a single consultancy company to design the facility in secret. Not surprisingly MPV and the consultant (GHD) have now publicly promoted a landfill under the guise of a LTCF.

The proposed design would entail the excavation of 4m deep “cells”, 35m by 50m, in a row of 5, making a series of holes more than 250m long. These cells would be lined in a manner similar to that proposed by CSR for their Werribee dump. Inside a movable, temporary structure, the waste would be tipped into the holes to a height of about 2-3m above the ground - similar to current practices at Lyndhurst. The cell would be progressively capped with a liner and soil. All very familiar to the landfill industry - the current manager of Lyndhurst recently claimed that their latest hazardous waste cell was a long-term containment facility of this type.

So the problem is compounded: we now have a fairly traditional landfill, similar to the “toxic dump” proposed for Werribee back in 1996, being located in a highly environmentally significant and sensitive site at Hattah.

The landfill industry is happy, the industrial generators of hazardous waste keep their collective heads in the sand and the government remains ignorant of the extent to which it is being duped and undermined by MPV.

But the community is not happy. There is overwhelming unity in north-west Victoria in opposition to the proposed landfill. In Melbourne an alliance of environmental groups has formed to oppose the proposal while the Western Region Environment Centre has actively investigated alternative sites and more appropriate technologies, with considerable success.

The strength of community opposition, fuelled by incontrovertible environmental arguments, will ensure that the Hattah site has very little chance of succeeding. The legal obstacles that MPV will have to overcome to obtain any kind of permit will pale into insignificance in the face of community outrage.

Which leaves the government’s admirable hazardous waste policy five years on the road to nowhere. Unless the government starts to listen to others besides MPV and the landfill industry, its credibility on waste management will be seriously eroded - there are a number of answers available to the Premier if he is willing to listen.

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Article edited by Angus Ibbott.
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About the Author

Harry van Moorst was, until recently, a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Community Development at Victoria University. He now works part time as the Director of the Western Region Environment Centre in the western suburbs of Melbourne and lectures part time at Victoria University.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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