$30,000 fine over failures at Woodlawn Eco-Precinct in Tarago

The operators of a waste facility outside Goulburn, which was the subject of odor complaints from its local community, have been fined $30,000.

On Tuesday (16 July), the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) said it had issued the penalty to Veolia Environmental Services (Australia) Pty.

The company failed to comply with the conditions of the environment protection licence at its mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facility in the Woodlawn Eco-Precinct in Tarago, which is between Goulburn and Canberra.

An EPA spokesperson said that during a routine inspection of the facility in April, officers saw a large amount of leachate collecting on compost pads.

The officers found that the drain designed to transfer leachate from the pads to the treatment dam was blocked, causing the liquid to back up and flood the pads.

NSW EPA executive director of operations Jason Gordon said the incident had the potential to cause odour issues and could have been avoided if more effective measures were in place.

“We expect all EPA licensed waste facilities to comply with the conditions of their licence, which includes maintaining and operating plants and their equipment in a proper and efficient manner. This was a clear failure to do so,” he said.

“Proper management of composting activities involving leachate – the contaminated liquid generated during the composting process – is crucial to prevent the pollution of subsoil, groundwater, and surface water, as well as offensive odours that can escape and impact neighbouring communities.”

Mr Goron said in the EPA’s view, the incident was preventable.

“Not only was the drain blocked but the leachate dam it served was full and resources available to help better manage the situation were not used,” he said.

“In this case, temporary rubber storage bladders should have been used by Veolia to store the excess leachate and create capacity in the dam.”

The EPA said it had previously issued Veolia with a formal warning and official cautions regarding non-compliance with the licence conditions at the facility.

A Veolia spokesperson said the company was committed to adhering to its many licence conditions.

“We are working with the regulator to resolve issues relating to potential odour from a pond associated with the mechanical biological treatment facility, in a way that has the best environmental outcomes. Veolia previously identified a rain-related issue within the MBT pond and proactively raised this with the EPA,” the spokesperson said.

“With regard to the recent breach, we are, as always, working diligently to rectify identified issues.

“The situation on-site has been significantly impacted by extreme rainfall over the past four years as a non-discharge site, and as a result, we are continuously putting in place measures to ensure compliance during extreme weather conditions going forward.”

Veolia is working with independent odour experts to identify further improvements that can be made at the site.

“These experts previously undertook assessments of the affected area and concluded it was of low odour causing potential, with no observable impact,” the Veolia spokesperson said.

“We are not aware of any leachate discharge to the environment, and all leachate remained within infrastructure designed to hold it.”

The spokesperson also said the company acknowledged there was room for improvement and had been implementing measures to ensure compliance, including the development of a large-scale leachate storage dam and using self-contained rubber storage bladders.

The EPA had previously looked into community complaints about odours from the precinct.