Bulla residents have vowed to fight a decision handed down by the state’s planning tribunal to extend the lifetime of the Bulla tip until 2023.
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal members deliberated for more than three months before handing down their decision to allow the operators of the Bulla tip to continue to use the site as a private rubbish tip for another eight years.
The five-day hearing in early March involved four separate appeals. Two land- owners sought independent action against the tip operator, BTQ Group.
A group of Bulla residents appealed against Hume council’s decision last April to grant BTQ Group a two-and-a-half-year extension of its planning permit.
The permit was granted until December 31, 2016, to allow landfill and rehabilitation works to be carried out.
BTQ Group also appealed against the council’s decision. The landfill operator had originally sought a 10-year extension, after having being granted a 20-year lease in 1993.
The VCAT decision to extend BTQ Group’s permit until December 31, 2023, was based on the view that the land can accommodate more landfill material.
“This is valuable, not only to the company and the owner of the land, but also to the community in general. Landfill capacity is a valuable asset,” VCAT said.
The tribunal largely dismissed resident complaints as being irrelevant, saying “they really only served to confuse and obfuscate the issue”, and directed them to take their grievances to the magistrates or Supreme Court. In another slap in the face to Bulla residents, the tribunal acknowledged that Hume council had described the landfill operators as “largely compliant” with permit conditions.
Alan McKenzie, who was born and raised in Bulla on a property that neighbours the tip, described BTQ Group as careless and said he was sick of the stench, dust and pollution that blows onto his paddocks.
“I think VCAT is a joke,” he said. “In the council and the EPA’s eyes, because we live on a farm, they think we’re able to withstand their dust and rubbish.”
His family grows wheat, barley and canola for human consumption on paddocks that adjoin the tip, which accepts asbestos, shredded tyres and building materials.
Mr McKenzie said that when the tip contaminated his crops, he received no form of compensation.
Carmel Egan, who lives near the tip and has become a spokeswoman for fed-up Bulla residents, said they will air their grievances in a submission to a state government inquiry into the EPA.
“We’ll prepare a submission about the EPA’s negligence and bring BTQ Group management to account,” Ms Egan said.
According to the EPA’s Damian Wells, BTQ Group was fined more than $14,000 last year because of multiple breaches of Pollution Abatement Notices.
“EPA will continue to regulate this site as a priority licence compliance site,” he said.
An underground fire has been burning on the site since before BTQ Group took over the land. The previous operators went into liquidation in 2008.
Attempts to extinguish the fire have failed.
