Tara Murray
Brimbank council is calling on the Barro Group to better keep residents up to date with what is happening at the Kealba Landfill site.
Cr Virginia Tachos raised an urgent business item at last week’s council meeting following a number of complaints from residents about an increase in odours coming from the site.
She said while the Barro Group had posted on its website on Monday about works being carried out at the site, many nearby residents were unaware and there had been no attempts to contact residents.
Cr Tachos’ motion called to account the EPA and urgently requested that it require the Barro Group to improve the direct engagement with individual community members and the broader community.
“Under the current EPA notice the landfill operator ‘must continue to engage with the local community’, including ‘engaging directly with individual community members about their specific concerns’,” she said.
“Again, the community is reporting that they are unaware of the current works which indicates that the Barro Group’s engagement remains inadequate and below community expectation.”
On the Barro website, it stated there may be possible offsite odour emissions, smoke and/or steam due to the excavation of ‘ hot’ waste .
The EPA updated its web page dedicated to the Kealba site last Wednesday.
It said the EPA’s recent odour survey undertaken onsite and in the nearby community noted that odours were less intense than in previous weeks, though constant and consistent with excavation works.
