Final remediation costs over RRC asbestos clean up released by council

A report was presented to the finance committee at its most recent meeting on February 21 on the final costs of remediation.

The total cost was $2,276,670.

While the initial estimate for disposal of the stockpiled material was $2.3 million, the validation process which was part of council’s remediation plan reduced the costs by $1,205,221.

But councillor Ian Scandrett remains far from happy with the outcome.

“I am appalled at what has happened and the huge cost to the ratepayers of the shire,” he said.

“At a time when we often complain we have no funds for deserving projects, let along basic infrastructure, this is just a disaster.”

Mayor Ken Halstead said the cost was “obviously excessive”, particularly given the fees paid as part of the waste levy for material which was sent to landfill.

The Wingecarribee shire is currently charged a metropolitan rate for the waste levy.

“There was obviously a lot of issues there that the managers had to deal with. But they’re finally on top of it,” Cr Halstead said.

“It only takes one person to put a very small amount of asbestos into building waste and it’s all contaminated. And the community pays.”

Council first became aware of contamination in recycled crushed aggregate material in July 2016.

Sale of the material from the RRC was immediately stopped.

The report said between March 2015 and at 2016, a small quantity of contaminated waste was accepted at the RRC but was not identified as part of the visual inspection.

“It is likely this was due to the size of the contaminated material being too small for identification.”

Some of the recycled product had been purchased by several customers, who were then notified once council became aware of the contamination.

Once the material was removed from the affected properties, it was sent to either an EPA licensed landfill or returned to the RRC and quarantined.

The total amount of material purchased by customers was 618.04 tonnes while the amount removed from affected properties was 1,147.90 tonnes.

According to the report, 7500 tonnes of waste material was quarantined in the crushed aggregate stockpile.

Of this, 468 tonnes was removed as potential contaminated material and 7032 tonnes was retained at the RRC for reuse.

1615.9 tonnes of the contaminated material was sent to landfill which cost $391,952.

This cost included the state government waste levy.

“Council has in total, paid the NSW State Government $223,317 as a result of this incident,” the report said.

The remediation works were completed in late January.

Separate to the remediation costs, council was also issued with two penalty notices from the EPA which totalled $23,000.