Tumut Waste Pty Ltd has been fined more than $500,000 for causing offensive odours that affected Tumut for nearly three months. Photo: Bellette’s Bulk Bins.
Tumut Waste Pty Ltd, which operates out of Bellettes Landfill, has been fined more than $500,000 over odours that affected the town in 2023.
Between June and September 2023 Tumut residents were subject to odours resembling rotten eggs and sulphur, prompting more than 200 complaints to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA).
According to the EPA, the odours were a result of the landfill operator’s failure to appropriately manage leachate (landfill liquid runoff) and a failure to undertake landfill gas and odour mitigation actions.
The matter was eventually brought to the NSW Land and Environment Court in December last year, with Tumut Waste Pty Ltd pleading guilty to two offences against the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEOA).
The first offence was for contravening section 129(3) of the POEOA, in which waste disposal was carried out under the authority conferred by Environment Protection Licence number 20596 (“licence”) and caused the emission of offensive odour from the premises in contravention of section 129(3) of that act by failing to have adequate controls in place to collect landfill gas (“LFG”) and treat it to remove odorous compounds, causing the emission of odour from the premises.
The second offence was a contravention of section 64(1) of the POEOA, in which Tumut Waste Pty Ltd contravened a condition of its licence by failing to appropriately manage leachate generated within cell 10A at the premises.
As a result, Tumut Waste Pty Ltd is required to pay $520,000 in fines and legal costs. $270,000 in fines will be issued for breaches of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997, with $135,000 to be paid to the Environmental Trust.
Tumut Waste has been ordered to pay the remaining $250,000 in EPA legal costs and ordered to publicise the outcome in a local newspaper.
NSW EPA Director of Operations Scott Kidd said the penalty should remind landfill operators about their obligation to follow EPA standards and responsibility to protect local communities.
“Offensive odours can cause significant distress in a community, and the EPA will continue to take strong action where landfills fail in their environmental responsibilities,” Mr Kidd said.
“In this case, one resident reported that the stench was so bad it caused them to dry retch.
“Other community members reported suffering headaches, irritated eyes, nausea, coughing and disrupted sleep.”
Mr Kidd said the EPA had introduced measures to ensure the site did not produce similar odours in the future.
“We responded swiftly to this issue, conducting multiple site inspections, installing odour monitors throughout the community and directing Tumut Waste to install a landfill gas extraction system to capture the gas before it reached the community, which significantly reduced odour complaints once installed in September 2023,” he said.
“I want to thank the community for diligently reporting the odours to our Environment Line via [email protected], which helped make this prosecution successful.”
As part of the response to the odours, the EPA instructed Tumut Waste to install a landfill gas extraction system to capture the gas before it reached the community. This was installed in September 2023 and significantly reduced the number of odour complaints.
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