GREATER Taree City Council has been advised it will be forced to defend itself in the Land and Environment Court, over its handling of leachate contamination near the Bucketts Way Landfill last year.
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For reasons council says it can't fathom, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has taken 12 months to decide it will take the council to court, rather than issue a fine.
In April 2012 an underground pipe at the Bucketts Way landfill failed, resulting in leachate contamination of a small tributary near Dennes Creek.
Executive leader of service delivery, Ron Posselt said council staff did everything possible to correct the situation as soon as it became known, including notifying the EPA immediately.
"We were notified of a leachate smell in the creek by an adjoining land holder," he said.
"Council staff immediately went to investigate and found that a small tributary of Dennes Creek, which was not running at the time, had some pools of dark water.
"The water was tested and leachate was found to be present. We reported this with the EPA who instructed us to sandbag the creek and pump the contaminated water into the MidCoast Water sewer for treatment.
"Council staff then traced the length of the pipe back to the source of the leak, which was found through wetness in the ground. An underground pipe had failed this was not something that could have been predicted.
"The leaking pipe joint was immediately fixed, not just that failed section, but we dug up the entire length of pipe and replaced every joint just to be sure," Mr Posselt said.
Further to this, council then decided to install a second pipeline, further away from the creek.
"This second pipeline is now in the design phase and should provide some redundancy in the system," Mr Posselt.
Mr Posselt firmly believes council took every possible precaution to remedy the situation as soon as it became aware of the problem, and obeyed the EPA's instructions at every stage.
No contaminated water ended up in Dennes Creek or the Manning River, as it was pumped out of the small tributary before it got that far. An small area of vegetation, approximately the size of a standard backyard, died near the broken underground pipe, but has now started to re-grow.
"There has been no permanent damage," he said.
"We're very disappointed the EPA has taken over 12 months to investigate such a small incident and have chosen to take council to court rather than issue a fine.
"This all happened around the time of the Orica incident in Newcastle last year and I feel there are political elements at work here," Mr Posselt said.
Council has been given until May 24 to respond and Mr Posselt indicated they have no choice but to engage barristers to plead their case.
"This is a waste of public money. The only winners here are the barristers.
"We're not disputing the fact that contamination occurred, but we will contend that it was unavoidable and we did everything possible to remedy the situation," Mr Posselt said.
The matter is scheduled to be heard in the Land and Environment Court in August.