Tara Murray
The Barro Group is considering asking the Environment Protection Authority for the ability to extend its hours of operation at the Kealba Landfill site to reduce the time needed for remediation works.
The group has been doing remediation work to put out spot fires that have been burning at the landfill for more than a year.
In a letter sent out to the community ahead of an online community forum this week, the group said under the changes, work would commence an hour earlier on weekdays and they would undertake remediation works between 6am and 12pm on Saturdays.
“Across the course of a week, it is anticipated up to an additional 11 hours of excavation and treatment could be undertaken depending on the nature of the material,” the letter stated.
“The additional hours would add to the range of other measures implemented over the past four months to reduce the overall time needed to safely complete remediation works.”
The letter said the temporary suspension of ‘ordinary works’, introduction of process enhancements relating to the daily cover requirements for material on the temporary laydown area, the deployment of additional equipment and a reorganisation of rostered work were among other measures taken.
The letter also stated that no environmental events were detected during the shutdown over the Christmas and new year period.
The community forum, to be held on Thursday night, is the third run by the Barro Group.
Barro said the views of residents are important to them as the landfill operator.
“While the forum will provide interested community members with an update on progress of works it will also seek input from residents on a proposal to introduce additional new measures aimed at speeding up the remediation process.”
The EPA will be in attendance.
In an online update last week, the EPA said Barro was complying with their EPA notice and that the EPA has observed good progress in recent weeks, with excavation now occurring deeper in the landfill and targeting the sub-surface hotspots near the base of the landfill.
It said that the most recent odour survey in the St Albans community and onsite, it noted odours had less intensity than previous weeks.
The community forum will be held on Thursday night from 7pm via Zoom. Access to the meeting is via link which will posted at sunshinelandfill.com.au on Thursday.
