Residents living near the Kealba landfill fear suspending the Barro Group’s licence will achieve nothing in their battle against ongoing fires.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) last week served a notice on Barro, asking it to show cause why its licence to operate at the site should not be suspended.
The EPA said a Notice on Intention to Suspend Permission has been issued to Barro because it is in contravention of its operating licence due to hotspots at the Kealba landfill – which have been burning since the second half of 2019 – causing odour impacts on residents.
The Barro Group failed to meet the May 31 deadline for extinguishing three of the hotspots, the EPA said.
The EPA has ordered that the remaining hotspots are extinguished by the end of July.
But Barro’s Steve Murphy has said that the fires are unlikely to be put out until May next year.
The EPA says it still expects the Barro Group to complete the remediation of the landfill site as quickly and safely as possible and to the deadlines set in the current notice.
Barro Group has until July 16 to respond to the latest notice.
At a weekly online community meeting last week, residents said they thought that suspending the licence wouldn’t change anything.
It was pointed out that the Barro Group had already suspended operations at the site, and that even if the licence was suspended, Barro was still responsible for putting out the fires.
Resident Nicole Power questioned why residents should think anything would change.
“I am so tired and drained of all of this,” she said.
“You suspend their licence for a period of time, [but you’re] not even talking about stopping the licence totally.
“They have to stay there and clean it up anyway. How is this going to produce anything different to what has been produced in the last 19 months?”
Brimbank councillor Virginia Tachos said residents just want to be able to breathe fresh air.
“What changes, if any, will the community feel with you asking for this to be put through?” she said.
“For this to drag on two years its really unacceptable.
“This show cause means nothing to the community, unless action is actually taken to lessen the impact of these odours.”
“Our lives are in the EPA’s hands.”
EPA chief executive Lee Miezis said the authority would continue to pursue the company to fully extinguish all hotspots and prevent them from reoccurring.
Since December 2019, Barro has been issued with five notices requiring remediation at the site. It has also twice been sanctioned.
“The community quite rightly wants this clean-up to be completed as quickly and safely as possible, and so does EPA,” Mr Miezis said.
“The health and wellbeing of the residents living near the landfill is our first priority and we will continue to pursue all possible legal avenues to get this site remediated.’’
