Although it is a Class 3 landfill it is still allowed to accept highly toxic refinery waste from Wren Oil - the worst form of concentrated heavy net sold and forever pollutants, and Tronox - containing soluble Uranium and Thorium which have both caused irreversible pollution in other locations. DEAG is concerned these wastes may in fact be “intractable waste” so should be sent to a Class 4 facilit
y. Are the facts being fudged by the waste being being diluted to satisfy existing license criteria?? Has there EVER been satisfactory testing and monitoring of both the Uranium and Thorium content both in site and in the aquifers immediately below the site, since both DWER and Minister for Health have told DEAG in 2021 that it is not their responsibility
2. Technically Enhanced Radioactive Titanium Refinery Tailings from Tronox are known to contain soluble radionuclides that pollute our aquifer water supply and cause cancer and are known to multiply exponentially within the first hundred years of storage. Existing aquifer testing regime does not include testing for Uranium or Thorium. Other states have shut down this industry apparently due to its toxic nature. DEAG claims this material should never be landfill waste. It should be recognised as Intractable Waste and stored at a site controlled by the rules of Mines Act, ARPANSA and the Radiological Council - the latter seem to be woefully ill equipped to manage such responsibility.
3. Directly on top of the major recharge point to the SW aquifer system used by thousands for mains water.
4. Teetering beside the longest major fault line in Australia
5. Overshadows prime irrigated agricultural land risking food security
6. So tall it’s used by sailors as a navigational-point ten miles out to sea. It is currently sixty times the size if the MCG, 115m above sea level, 70 to 80 m above the road so now it appears taller than the scarp - and it’s growing. Expansion plans are pushing for a 50% height increase.
7. At the entrance to a booming tourism hub
8. Has two schools 3km down wind - and yes they get the toxic dust
9. Shares two boundaries with no setbacks with a Conservation Park that is showing serious signs of stress including a stretch of dieback within metres of the sites leachate ponds - could they have leaked?
10. Has rivers on both sides which also feed aquifer system or farms.
11. Had multiple tip fires which could have compromised the liners and certainly threaten the entire area with toxic smoke and spread of catastrophic bush fire. DFES maintains that Cleanaways expansion plans pose an increased risk of bushfire and should not be approved.
12. The HDPE liners are proven to only last from zero to one hundred years. DEAG understands the liners on this site have a history of damage and tardy repairs. In other words they are probably already failing and already leaching a toxic cocktail into the aquifers
