Melbourne Water (MW) is under pressure to remove a stockpile of asbestos-contaminated sediment dredged from Stony Creek.
The water authority has been delivered a clean-up notice from the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) – the third such notice since November – to manage the risk of asbestos contamination along a stretch of creek from the Laurel Street Bridge at St Albans to the creek’s junction with the Yarra River near the West Gate Bridge.
MW has until June this year to assess the areas where dredged sediment has been stockpiled to determine the level and extent of any contamination, and to provide a human health risk assessment.
MW must also submit a plan for the ongoing management, reuse or disposal of any waste sediment.
The asbestos is not in a form that can be breathed in, and air monitoring confirms it is below detectable limits. Independent testing has advised that the risk to human health is negligible to low.
EPA chief executive officer Nial Finegan said the new notice built on the prior notices requiring Melbourne Water to investigate all previous dredging activities.
“[It] complements the earlier work by [assessing] any risks from asbestos posed by the practice of reusing some of the dredged sediments on land abutting the creek,” Mr Finegan said.
