Cleanaway Attempt To Hoodwink The Community
The attached leaflet landed in many letterbox this week. Not all households received it as other members of IRATE in Collingwood Park had not seen it. It is another scam attempt to the community by this company.
Background
In 2011 as part of their application MCU 4250/2011, Cleanaway tried to increase the Council approved height of its final landform at New Chum from RL70 metres to RL120 metres. They inadvertently withdrew this part of the application when they revised it subsequent to a P&E Court decision in their favour regarding rate of disposal.
Nevertheless they continued on their merry way, overfilling one part of the site by over 1 million cubic metres (I believe the figure is around 1.3 million).
The overfilling was discovered by IRATE and alerted to authorities. Council did not ask Cleanaway to remove the overfill and redistribute it to other cells, but required the company to submit a reprofiled landform plan with new contours and a reduced footprint to compensate for the overfilling, so that there would be no net increase in the volume landfilled.
Then as recently uncovered by Fairfax journalist Mark Solomons and published in the media, it transpires that Cleanaway has been for several years, accepting waste transported from NSW as "recyclables" at its Willawong transfer station, only to load it onto QLD registered trucks and transport it to New Chum landfill.
Such is the urgency with which this activity is conducted that "truck drivers have told Fairfax Media that dumps in Ipswich have begun prioritising interstate waste . . . and even rejected deliveries of local construction waste".
This is despite this carefully worded statement on Cleanaway's website in response to a 2017 ABC Four Corners investigation:
Fast forward to now
As a result of these actions, Cleanaway have made money faster than anticipated by filling the New Chum dump at an accelerated pace. Unsurprisingly they wish to continue to do so. Of course this means prolonging the life of the dump (that would otherwise close in 2-3 years) and its adverse amenity impacts on neighbouring communities.
You won't see the word "expansion" in the attached sanitised letterdrop but that's what it's about. Instead Cleanaway uses the word "rehabilitation" to describe what it wants to do. What are they rehabilitating exactly? You'll note that there is no statement as to the exact nature of the proposal. An information-free zone designed to calm community concerns and cast the company as a good corporate citizen.
The Ministerial TLPI gazetted on 6 April clearly states that landfill cannot extend beyond the top edge of a mining void or be of a height not in keeping with the natural landscape. The highest natural point of the landscape pre-opencut mining was approximately 80 metres. There was a mining void on site, once - it has been well and truly filled.
The community want Cleanaway to adhere to their approved landfill plan, complete and cap their 75 hectare wasteland which they have comprehensively failed to progressively rehabilitate for many years (despite that being a condition of their licence).
We certainly don't want many more years of rounding the corner from Collingwood Drive into Eagle Street to be confronted by the vast offensive expanse of their cell liners and the spectacle of huge clouds of rising dust and trucks disgorging waste loads onto a dusty desert.
Cleanaway are planning a special Community Reference Group meeting later this month at which they will reveal their plans to CRG members. The 2 IRATE members on the CRG (Jim and Geoff) requested that other members of the IRATE committee be allowed to attend, as well as Jo-Ann Miller as State Member for Bundamba. Jim Madden MP for Ipswich West also expressed a desire to attend. These requests were denied.
Cleanaway prefer to have a separate meeting with IRATE the next evening - away from the Councillors for Divisions 3 and 4 and senior staff of Council's Planning Department who are members of the CRG. Jo-Ann Miller apparently must attend one of the public "drop-in sessions" later in the week. What an affront!
As demonstrated by the attached leaflet and their Community Benefit Scheme designed to win hearts and minds, it's all about image and control. It's certainly not about any genuine feeling for the community.
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