Yahoo News NSW property developer charged just $563 after allegedly dumping tonnes of asbestos-contaminated waste
A major property developer was penalised just $563 as an “administration fee” after being accused of dumping tonnes of asbestos-contaminated building waste at a site it was developing in Dubbo.
The incident, which is alleged to have involved tonnes of building waste from Sydney being dumped at the newly developed Southlakes housing estate by the housing estate’s developer, Maas Group Properties, illustrates the difficulties of enforcement of the environmental laws.
In April the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority issued a cleanup notice to the Dubbo-based civil construction and property company Maas Group Properties after it became aware that the building and demolition waste, which it alleged contained asbestos, was being transported from Millers Point in Sydney to Dubbo by trucks operated by Maas.
Maas operates a civil excavation business and is one of the largest property developers in Dubbo.
The cleanup notice claims tonnes of material were ending up at Southlakes, but despite the site being deposited close to areas where people are living, Maas has so far avoided prosecution and has been hit only with a $563 administrative fee and the costs of cleaning up its alleged mess.
“They were issued with a cleanup notice and have complied with that cleanup notice so at this stage we are not intending to take any additional action in relation to that,” the EPA’s director of waste compliance, Greg Sheehy, said.
The decision by the EPA not to prosecute has perturbed local EPA staff and some members of Dubbo regional council.
According to the EPA’s cleanup notice, the contaminated building waste was deposited at the Southlakes housing development, which is not far from houses that are already occupied.
EPA officers who attended the site saw approximately 28 stockpiles of a distinct grey-coloured waste material that contained sandstone building and demolition waste including foreign materials comprising brick, concrete, render, plastic, rubber, PVC pipe, glass, tiles and terracotta pipe, according to the cleanup notice issued by the authority.
There were also 60 piles of brown material. A number of pieces of suspected asbestos-containing material was seen on the surface of both the grey and brown stockpiles and three of these pieces tested positive for asbestos on site. A further four samples of suspected asbestos-containing materials were collected for analysis with two subsequently confirmed as containing asbestos, the notice said.
There were no coverings or erosion or dust suppression controls around any of the piles, which meant residents who are already living at Southlakes may have been potentially exposed to dust.
But despite the EPA saying that asbestos had been found and verified, the company’s CEO, Wes Maas, is continuing to insist there was no asbestos in the waste he transported.
“The material was removed as it didn’t fit within the recycled aggregate exemption, which would have allowed it to be used in the development,” he said.
“The reference to asbestos in the cleanup notice was only in the preamble/ background and it said the material was “possibly containing asbestos”, he said.
“Subsequent to the notice the material was tested and confirmed by the EPA that it did not contain asbestos,” Maas said.
He also claimed this was confirmed by independent accredited environmental consultants.
“I can categorically tell you that there was no asbestos in the material that was transported from Sydney, this was tested and confirmed it was clear of asbestos. This was tested and confirmed by independent labs and also the EPA.”
He added: “There was one pile of material on the whole Southlakes site – (131.7 hectares future 2,500 housing lots) that has two pieces of cement fibro that contained asbestos fragments. Note these two pieces were the size of your thumbnail. This material was generated from onsite works , clearing of old fence lines on the farm. This was the only asbestos found on the whole site during investigations.
Asked to clarify Maas’ claim there was no asbestos, a spokeswoman for the EPA said: “Asbestos-containing material was identified at a number of locations on the site within the area covered by the cleanup notice and was removed from the site and disposed of at a lawful waste facility as part of the remediation of the site.”
In 2018 the government announced that it would get tough on illegal dumpers and was increasing fines to $2m for corporations and $500,000 for individuals who illegally dispose, recycle or reuse asbestos waste. Previously the maximum fine was $44,000 for corporations and $22,000 for individuals.
Directors and managers can also be held liable for offences committed by their companies under these new laws.
“Illegally dumping asbestos is a serious crime, and we want dumpers to know there are tough penalties for those that flagrantly break the law,” the then environment minister, Gabrielle Upton, said.
The mayor of Dubbo regional council, Ben Shields, said the council had now done more checks of the Southlakes development amid fears by residents that there could be more contamination.
It has taken 60 core samples to test the soils for contamination, but has not found any more problem areas, Shields said.
However, he said illegal dumping of building waste around Dubbo had generally got a lot worse in recent years.
“Because we don’t provide a pickup service in some areas, we have small village tips for the locals which were, until recently, unmanned,” Shields said.
“But we are now getting a lot of asbestos being dumped in them, so we have had to fence them and man them at great expense. That means they can only be open a few hours a week.
“It’s all because people from Sydney want to dump their stuff in Dubbo,” he said.
Despite this incident, Maas was awarded a major NSW government contract in June for the bulk earthworks at the site where the new regional rail facility will be built.
The facility is part of the Berejiklian government’s $2.8bn regional rail project, which will see new XPT trains built to service rural NSW.
