The Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) has wrapped up two of the most significant clean-up projects in Victoria’s history with a significant fire risk removed from Lara along the State’s South West Coast region and chemical waste removed from Melbourne.
Chief Executive of EPA, Lee Miezis said the last truckload of waste had left the Broderick Rd site in Lara (pictured), marking the end of a three-year project that eliminated a significant fire risk for the Lara and Geelong communities.
Mr Miezis said that in April 2019, EPA exercised its powers to clean up the site on the basis that the stockpiles of waste posed an unacceptable risk to human health, safety and the environment in the event of a fire.
“The amount of waste onsite, about 286,200 m3 presented a challenge to remove safely, efficiently, and cost-effectively,” Mr Miezis said.
“In places, the pile was 20 metres high,” he said.
“The completion of this project on time, on budget and without any significant incidents, is a great achievement for EPA and for the project’s principal contractor Ausdecom.”
Mr Miezis also confirmed the completion of the clean-up of 1,163 containers of chemical waste from Dandenong South in Melbourne after a three-month operation.
The CEO said that in March, EPA started operations to remove about 1,200 intermediate bulk containers (IBCs) of liquid chemical waste stored at the facility.
“The IBCs contained about 1,000 litres of liquid each,” he said.
“The IBCs were taken to an EPA licensed co-processing facility in Victoria, where the liquid chemical waste was co-processed in cement kilns for treatment and disposal.”
