EPA refuses to help pay for toxic waste cleanup
Published on 29 July 2025
The EPA has rubbished VCAT suggestions that it should help Moorabool Shire Council pay for the $500,000 cleanup of toxic waste illegally dumped on Council-managed land under the EPA’s watch.
Council challenged at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) an Environment Protection Authority (EPA) order that it must clean up trailers of harmful industrial waste abandoned just outside Bacchus Marsh on a Crown Road reserve managed by Council on behalf of the state.
The effect of the VCAT order is that Council must perform the cleanup, which will cost around half a million dollars, as the waste was highly unstable and dangerous. The VCAT order referred to cost-sharing, however, the EPA has refused to do so.
Mayor, Cr Paul Tatchell, said the EPA should share the cleanup cost as the illegal dumper of the toxic waste had been under surveillance since at least last year and the EPA had failed to take action.
“The EPA has trashed the idea of cost sharing when clearly their actions have let this situation unfold.
“Why should our ratepayers bear the cost when the EPA had ample time and opportunity to clean up this waste long before it was dumped on land we manage.”
Council officers recently inspected a property adjoining the dumped trailers, using its powers under the Planning and Environment Act.
During the site inspection, more canisters of suspected toxic waste were sighted on this property.
“VCAT says we have to clean up the containers on our land because they are dangerous and unstable – what’s the EPA doing about the canisters on the adjoining property?
“We are being told to remove the canisters on the road reserve while there are apparently dozens more on the property they’ve had under surveillance – they’re just sitting there. Presumably they are just as dangerous!”
Cr Tatchell said Council was now working out the logistics of the cleanup, which is due to start next week by specialist contractors. The dissolved acetylene cylinders, which are highly flammable and filled with asbestos, will need to be transported safely to the sole facility in Victoria which can dispose of them correctly, located in Stawell.
Council is also concerned about many other container loads of toxic waste which aerial footage shows were once stored on the site and are now in places unknown.
It is alerting other councils, as they may be similarly impacted and required to bear the cost of cleanup if any of this missing toxic waste appears on land other councils own or manage.
The shire is also currently running a campaign targeting illegal dumping in the shire, particularly by builders and contractors coming into the area for work. For more details, visit Illegal Dumping