Kaniva clean-up work continues
Environment Protection Authority Victoria leaders have reassured the Kaniva community that clean-up and monitoring will proceed at an illegal waste dump on a large rural property south of the town.
Work is set to resume in late April, following a break during the summer months at the direction of Country Fire Authority.
The CFA directed EPA to limit work on the property during severe, extreme and total fire ban days to mitigate health risks.
North-west regional manager Scott Pigdon said EPA would start stabilisation and remediation works at the property ‘to remove all waste from the site to the point where no further monitoring is required’.
“We will be on site late April and early May,” he said.
“We are continuing our drone surveys on very specific patches of ground over the 1400 acres and we are just about to start some site stabilisation works.
“Over the summer we did a lot of low-risk activities including drone works, further planning, groundwater monitoring, community consultation, planning and procurement.
“At the moment everything is going to plan. Our window is now open to go into stabilisation works and other works in a couple of months’ time.”
Mr Pigdon said EPA was working with West Wimmera Shire Council to make the site’s roads more accessible.
“A large proportion of the site is sand and we are finding a lot of our vehicles are getting bogged,” he said.
“We need to shore up a few roads. Council will be assisting us to do some of those works.”
Mr Pigdon said although the latest work with Gwmwater showed no indications of contamination to groundwater, surveying work would continue for other potential risks on the site.
EPA exercised its power to take over management of the site to secure and monitor the property in December last year following property owner Graham White’s failure to comply with a clean-up notice.
Mr Pigdon said EPA was paying all costs of the clean-up at the site, but he could not provide details about the overall costs of the ongoing legal investigation.
“This has been an enormous amount of work – it is a challenging site,” he said.