A stockpile of approximately one million tyres has been removed from a Victorian site at a cost of about $5 million.
Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) CEO Nial Finegan said 9500 tonnes of tyres and shred had been removed from the Stawell site, after repeated failure by the site’s owners to comply with orders to reduce the risk of fire at the site.
“On 2 August 2017, it was decided that little to no effort had been made by the stockpile’s owner to comply with a Country Fire Authority Fire Prevention Notice or any of three EPA notices issued on the site that required the owner to reduce the risk of fire at the site and to segregate tyres into smaller piles; therefore, unacceptable environmental and community risks remained on the eve of the forthcoming fire season,” Finegan said.
“In short, EPA was of the view that the stockpile appeared to have been abandoned or was being handled in a manner by the owners that was likely to cause an environmental hazard.”
More than 380 trucks filled with tyre and shred were taken from the site, with the majority going to Melbourne to be processed at an EPA-licensed site; about 35% were unable to be processed due to contamination from mud and dirt and went to landfill.
Finegan said if the stockpile had caught fire it would have had many environmental, economic and social risks for Stawell and its surrounds.
“The environmental impacts would have included air quality, firewater runoff into local waterways and land contamination,” Finegan said.
“In the event of a fire there would likely have been a need to evacuate about 7000 people from Stawell. A fire also would have impacted on the brand of Grampians tourism in areas such as the Great Western and the Pyrenees and Grampians wine regions.
“There would also have been agricultural impacts, waterway impacts from fire water and contamination, and a likely closure of major highway and railway connections, not to mention the cost of a likely several-month firefight."
The EPA will now seek recover costs from the current and/or previous owners and occupiers of the site through the courts.