A NSW city council has been fined $5,000 by the NSW EPA for using land as a waste facility without lawful authority.
The site is owned and occupied by the Council but is not licensed as a waste storage facility.
An inspection by NSW EPA officers last year found that more than 9,000 cubic metres of waste was being stored on the site including soil, concrete waste, general solid waste, wood, aggregate, tyres, drain sediment and material for road construction.
At the time it was identified, the Protection of the Environment Operations Act required sites with more than 2,500 cubic metres of waste to operate with an Environment Protection Licence. As of August 2015 this licensing threshold will be lowered to 1,000 cubic meters.
The NSW EPA has ordered the Council to engage a waste expert to conduct a waste audit of all waste management practices and identify all Council waste sites.
The regulator has also issued a clean-up notice to the Council to safely deal with the materials at the site.
