EPA boss John Merritt promises a more robust approach to prosecuting companies that pollute the environment. His warning is: “we are coming!’’. Merritt says the EPA has lacked the energy and confidence to chase down polluters in the past.
Former service stations are abandoned “bomb sites’’ in many towns and suburbs because leaking underground tanks have contaminated the ground and it costs too much to remediate the properties. Critics say the EPA hasn’t had the resources to deal adequately with the issue.
All the Benovic family wanted was a quiet life with a view of the Dandenong ranges from their back balcony. Instead, what they see is a 50-metre-high dirt pile that blows dust and grime through their house. Angry and bitter, they call it their very own "great wall of China".
In a video interview John Merritt acknowledges past failings by the EPA and undertakes to be more transparent with the community. Is this false hope for the EPA’s critics or will he deliver? You be the judge.
Investigation: internal EPA documents show that questions were asked at the highest levels of the authority as to why it did not serve Spotless with Cleanup Notices over polluting inner Melbourne sites. Instead, the EPA fired its guns against a small developer and landowner.
EPA boss John Merritt promises a more robust approach to prosecuting companies that pollute the environment. His warning is: “we are coming!’’. Merritt says the EPA has lacked the energy and confidence to chase down polluters in the past.
Former service stations are abandoned “bomb sites’’ in many towns and suburbs because leaking underground tanks have contaminated the ground and it costs too much to remediate the properties. Critics say the EPA hasn’t had the resources to deal adequately with the issue.
At least three times a day, Mato Benovic, 63, sweeps the fine dust that coats his back verandah, all the while cursing the dirt hill that has been dumped near his back fence. In a video interview, he says he feels helpless and that he has been destroyed financially, emotionally and in every other way.
All the Benovic family wanted was a quiet life with a view of the Dandenong ranges from their back balcony. Instead, what they see is a 50-metre-high dirt pile that blows dust and grime through their house. Angry and bitter, they call it their very own "great wall of China".
In a video interview John Merritt acknowledges past failings by the EPA and undertakes to be more transparent with the community. Is this false hope for the EPA’s critics or will he deliver? You be the judge.
Investigation: internal EPA documents show that questions were asked at the highest levels of the authority as to why it did not serve Spotless with Cleanup Notices over polluting inner Melbourne sites. Instead, the EPA fired its guns against a small developer and landowner.
Residents and shop owners in leafy suburban Blackburn hate it, but it's stood derelict and ugly for the past 13 years with little activity around it. Shut down due to contaminated soil, the former petrol station is an eye sore and apparently too much of a challenge for the EPA .
The problem: reportedly one million litres of petrol. The cleanup cost: about $500,000. The result: furious locals.
Cleaning up contaminated sites often costs millions of dollars. The question of who picks up the bill is a vexed issue. And when legal action is taken the costs can blow out further and impose years of delay. Surely, there’s a better way.
Compared to environmental regulators in New South Wales, the Victorian EPA’s use of infringement notices and prosecutions is woefully low – and seems to be declining.
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