Will new specialised staff change the council's long-held ambivalence to protecting the environment?

The 'Officer for the Protection of Local Environment', or OPLE, will start shortly, the City of Ballarat confirmed, with CEO Evan King saying the council was 'excited' about the development.

"The role of this officer will be to provide environmental monitoring and assessment and educate the community about environmental concerns," Mr King said.

However the OPLE program's focus is responding to smaller-scale, lower-risk pollution issues in communities such as dust, odour, noise and small-scale illegal dumping, reducing illegal chemical and waste stockpiling, the EPA website says. It says nothing about environmental oversight of planning or development sites, which are a concern for many.

Nonetheless local community groups and environmentalists are cautiously hopeful the moves signal a new direction for council, long criticised for resisting attempts to introduce 'green' initiatives in past decades in favour of developers.

Local Landcare groups, community representatives and former council employees told The Courier there was often a culture of 'open hostility' to environmental standards within council for at least two decades, with even top executives siding with developers to sideline or avoid any oversight which might slow building.

Hedley Thomson was a director of planning, manager of corporate strategy and manager of parks and environment for 10 years at council. He says enduring conservatism in Ballarat, and council, meant the environment was neglected.

"The environment is seen as is the opposite of development," Mr Thomson said.

"Development itself is a misnomer, the way we use it. Quite often it's destruction; we should be talking about destruction, not development. Development is meant to be improvement. We don't always see that. It is very, very hard, and in terms of the EPA's reluctance to take action, I would see that as going back to further up the chain. Anyone who's involved in enforcement would either be told directly, or would read the writing on the wall, the invisible message, that you're not to push too hard.

"You're in a workplace that not only was ambivalent towards the environment, but was trenchantly opposed because it saw it as anti-development.

"The best thing EPA did for for us when I was at council was have a stormwater awareness program which was terrific. They put money into that: there was a part it was a public education program as well as money to construct wetlands and such. And that led directly into our stormwater management plan, which they helped fund.

"It was actually a stormwater awareness program statewide. it's one of the best things, in my view, the EPA has ever done, because it was proactive, it was positive. It was out there talking to businesses and the community. It was linked to us, and the work we were doing was terrific. But that's been a rarity. It just ended fairly quickly; it probably only lasted 12 months or a couple of years.

"As far as stormwater management is concerned, as I've seen it in several cases, they've gone back to constructing retarding basins, the old-fashioned method. They just hold water, then empty out, and then they're just covered in weeds. When the idea of the stormwater management plan was wetlands, which would certainly do stormwater retention function. But they would also have a natural environmental function, restoring wetlands into the waterway systems.

"As I can see, that's gone. We've got waterways that have been piped when they shouldn't be. I don't know where the catchment management authority is in all of this. They're probably under the same pressure as the EPA. This is stuff which 40 years ago you weren't supposed to be doing. The environment does not register other than as being a bloody nuisance."

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Another former council officer told The Courier their investigations in environmental breaches were shelved through directors being frightened of 'red tape' holding up development, and poor planning controls not being enforced.

"They used to say 'red tape' as though environmental protection was bad," the former officer said.

"We were told not to investigate dodgy work 'out of town' because no-one cared; to concentrate on the 'big-money' ratepayer complaints in town."

The former officer said investigations into soil-runoff in Lucas, Delacombe and Alfredton were shelved in 2019 and never reopened.

"Compliance officers and planners were told by upper management not to harass developers (investigations were often seen as forms of harassment) by things like requiring a water cart/truck to be on site wetting down soil - even if the planner or enforcement officer assessed it as inadequate protection."

The environmental appointments come as local environmental group concerns continue over another continuing soil pollution event, with sediment flowing into the Yarrowee River at Brown Hill below a development on Hillview Road.

Social media posts containing photos of yellow-brown water flowing in the Yarrowee were posted earlier this week as light rain continued in the region.

Wattle Flat Pootilla Landcare Group member and Brown Hill resident Anthony Murphy said it was apparent sediment from the Gull Group's Hillview Road Development was still flowing into the river.

"There's definitely sediment going in now," Mr Murphy told The Courier.

"There's that sediment dam they've put at the top there; they're allowed to discharge from that dam, but the water has to be better quality than what's normally in the river. What they've got to do is treat the water going into the dam, put alum or something in it and settle out the clay. Then they're allowed to discharge water via an outfall (made of) bales of hay and aggregate rock.

"Since this rain started - we've had about 75mm of rain since the start of June, so it's not heavy rain - there's been yellow water flowing down that outfall. It's quite visible, it's finding its way into the river. It's noticeable when you get down to Springs Road, where the Gong Gong Creek merges with the Yarrowee River; you can see water colour changes."

In a statement, Gull Group alleges site vandalism is causing the run-off, saying 'all parties currently working on the land development project on Hillview Road, Brown Hill, including the Environment Protection Authority, City of Ballarat, engineers and contractors, continue to work collaboratively pursuant to previously-approved planning permit conditions and controls...'

'The developers are astounded malicious damage has deliberately occurred to the sediment controls on the site. The actions of trespassers have been reported to council and relevant authorities. The developers are (investigating) these actions and will take legal action for damages committed.'

The EPA confirmed an ongoing investigation into sedimentary inflows into the Yarrowee River from a development on Hillview Road.

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