An “industrial scale” dump on a residential property on Oakey Creek Road, Wallaroo, is visited by hundreds of trucks from Canberra every day, concerned residents say.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Yass Valley Council says the dumping is not dangerous or illegal, but concedes there may be compliance issues with “the quantity of material going on to the site”.
On October 24, residents from Wallaroo picketed a construction site at the Australian National University (ANU) in a protest against the dumping.
Clean fill soil from the university's Union Court redevelopment has been trucked across the border to be dumped at the property.
Protest organiser John Connelly said ACT developers should have to dump within the Territory, rather than travelling to Wallaroo.
“At the end of Oakey Creek Road there is an industrial scale dumping site. I've seen four trucks lining-up to get in while others wait outside,” he said.
"We might have 200 trucks coming here each day and this is just totally unacceptable to the residents."
The development application (DA) for the Oakey Creek property showed that construction work had been approved in June, 2016. Residents said this was when the first trucks began visiting to dump at the site.
Council planning director Chris Berry said the dumped material was clean soil, which had been approved by authorities as back fill for the construction of a house on the Oakey Creek property.
However, Mr Berry admitted there could be issues with the volume of dirt dumped on the property.
“The question is whether the quantity of material coming to the site is consistent with the approval. That's what we are trying to get to the bottom of,” Mr Berry said.
He said investigations are continuing and to date “no concerns have been raised about the quality or type of clean fill being delivered”.
“In the past fortnight, staff have visited the property on a number of occasions and are working closely with the owner,” Mr Berry told The Tribune.
The DA shows the Yass Valley Council approved 8000 cubic metres of clean fill soil at the site.
Residents questioned whether it was even legal to dump there, given specific clauses in the development application governing the disposal of waste material.
“All construction and/or demolition waste associated with the development shall be disposed of at a licensed waste management facility,” the application read.
The Yass Valley Council said this was a boilerplate clause that related to "material emanating from the site, not material going to the site".
The council said this was a boilerplate clause that related to “material emanating from the site, not material going to the site”.
Residents believed it was not just material from the ANU site that was being dumped at Oakey Creek Road.
One homeowner who asked not to be named said “it's come from hundreds of sites across Canberra in the last 14 months”.
A statement by the protest group said “there is strong evidence that NSW and even the E3 zone of the Murrumbidgee Corridor is being used as a dump for ACT building rubbish”.
A spokesman from ANU said the material was “virgin excavated natural material”.
"A material can only be classified as virgin excavated natural material if it has been excavated from an area that is not contaminated with manufactured chemicals or process residues as a result of industrial, commercial, mining or agricultural activities," he said.
"To date, approximately 7,500 cubic metres of virgin excavated natural material has been imported to the building site on Oakey Creek Road in Wallaroo. No demolition waste or debris has been disposed of at the site.”
Phil Peelgrane, one of the protesters at ANU, spoke about the council’s revised ‘Truck and transport depots in rural areas’ policy at the council meeting on October 25, saying the “ridiculous exemption of 8000 cubic metres’ needs to be removed” because it also impacts on road usage by heavy vehicles.
The applicant of the DA for the Wallaroo property has been contacted for comment.
