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FRE
March 10, 2016
Your independent local newspaper
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Issue 128
Ph: 4325 7369
Liberals refuse to support call for independent inquiry he Central C o a s t ’ s two NSW Government sitting members, member for Terrigal, Mr Adam Crouch and parliamentary secretary for the Central Coast, Mr Scot MacDonald have refused to support the Mountain Districts Association’s calls for an independent inquiry into the Mangrove Mountain landfill.
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Coast community News also asked Central Coast’s Labor MPs whether or not they were prepared to publicly support the community’s calls for an independent inquiry. At the time of going to press we had not received a response. Mr MacDonald said he would “continue to take the advice of the responsible minister and the appropriate state agencies in the management of the Mangrove Mountain landfill. “That advice is that the operator is compliant with its consent and conditions,” Mr MacDonald said. “We have an obligation to act on evidence and will continue to closely monitor the landfill,” he said. Mr Crouch also referred the matter back to the minister for the environment and heritage
A leachate pond on the landfill site showing two exit pipes in the bank, upper one (left of middle) allegedly used for discharge
and assistant minister for planning, Mr Mark Speakman. In a written statement, Mr Speakman said: “I am advised that the results from monitoring by water quality experts from the Office of Environment and Heritage have not shown any evidence to suggest the landfill is having a negative impact on the Ourimbah catchment water quality or stream health. “This is also backed by the annual ground water quality monitoring reports submitted to the EPA by the landfill operators, as well
as catchment and drinking water quality monitoring by Wyong Water,” he said. “The EPA will continue to monitor the landfill site, conduct regular water quality testing and will make these results available to the community,” he said. Mr Speakman did not answer several questions sent to his office by Coast Community News. In response to a question as to whether the minister believed the EPA could be relied on to make a reasonable assessment of any possible threat to the Central Coast’s
water supply posed by the landfill, given that the authority stands to make millions of dollars’ worth of fees associated with reinstating the landfill operator’s licence, Mr Speakman said, “Waste levies paid on waste deposited at the Mangrove Mountain site go into consolidated government revenue.” He was also asked if he had received the 170page submission from the Mountain Districts Association calling for an independent commission of inquiry into the landfill
and he was asked to declare whether or not he would support the community’s calls for such an investigation. Mr Speakman’s statement did not directly answer either of those two questions. Meanwhile, Dr Stephen Goodwin from the Mountain Districts Association called the EPA’s Environment Line to report a pollution incident on Tuesday, March 1. “The complaint was about discharge from one of the sedimentation ponds on the Mangrove Mountain
Waste Landfill site (EPL 11395),” Dr Goodwin said. “Discoloured water in this discharge was running downhill into the catchment of the Ourimbah Creek system and the Central Coast water supply and had been for some time,” he said. “The discharge is an irrefutable fact and is a constant flow coming from the landfill site. “The most likely origin of the flow is from a sedimentation via two PVC pipes embedded in the pond wall in a strip of wall adjacent to the Mangrove Mountain golf course. “Both pipes are set at a low level so that when the pond is fuller, as is the case presently, these pipes are not obvious. “To ascertain the location of these pipes would require a deliberate effort to access this area from within the site and they may not be visible even then, due to the turbidity of the water. “In relation to this matter, later on Tuesday, I was rung by an officer of the EPA who had attended the Mangrove Mountain Waste Landfill site during the day, regarding the details of my pollution complaint. “In the course of this I was asked to provide photographic evidence, which I did. “Earlier, I had been rung by Ms Jenny Lange, acting head of EPA Waste, Newcastle, to discuss Continued P3
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