Ballarat City Council has been issued a nearly $8000 fine by the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).
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City of Ballarat’s Regional Landfill site at Smythesdale had not had its environmental monitoring plan verified by an independent auditor for more than three years.
During a routine inspection of the Glenelg Highway site, EPA officers found the plan required under the EPA licence remained in draft form.
Council were issued with a Pollution Abatement Notice requiring that the plan be updated and verified by the end of August last year, which was then pushed back to mid-December after an extension was granted.
While the information was received before the due date, details provided by City of Ballarat were not in compliance with the notice requirement.
City of Ballarat would not directly respond to The Courier’s questions about where payment for the fine will be drawn from, or if it plans to appeal or fight the almost $8000 fine in court.
EPA’s director for regional operations and emergency management Dan Hunt said independent verification of these plans was a requirement for license-holders.
The plans are a legal necessity, he said, so the EPA can confirm that landfill activities aren’t impacting people, their amenity or the environment.
“There is no excuse for a large regional council with a responsibility to the community and their impact to the environment to fail to comply with an EPA notice,” Mr Hunt said.
“The first part of fixing an issue is identifying an issue, and if your monitoring isn’t adequate or robust enough to identify a problem or find those issues, then you’re never going to know they’re there.
“We don’t issue these notices for no reason. We expect all duty holders, whether they’re from industry, private landholders, or state and local governments to comply with those notices.”
In a statement, City of Ballarat director Terry Demeo said the fine comes out of a "technical breach only” and the City of Ballarat has always implemented the updated requirements that have arisen out of previous audits.
