Page 1306 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2016
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time of the odour. Information on any additional or unusual activity that may have been undertaken at the Mugga Lane site is also considered as part of the analysis.
Unfortunately, despite ongoing investigations into complaints, the source of the odour remains unclear. EPA officers have so far been unable to identify a pattern which would conclusively indicate that the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre is the source of the offensive odour.
The EPA’s analysis has been made more difficult by the varied nature of complaints. There have been large variations in the times and location and the distance between odour complaints. Further, it is interesting to note that no complaints have been received from Hume, despite it being closer to the landfill than the residential suburbs and being subject to prevailing north-westerly winds.
In an additional effort to locate the source of the odour, the ACT EPA have had discussions with their New South Wales colleagues in order to obtain any advice that may be useful in analysing the data so far received. To date the New South Wales experts have not been able to provide any further assistance in this area.
The ACT EPA is continuing to investigate complaints as they are received. To assist this data collection and analysis, I say again that it would be very helpful if any residents affected could report their experience to the EPA via Access Canberra, noting the location and time of any odour smelt.
A letter is being sent this week to residents in affected areas. It contains updated information on the issue and provides guidance on how residents can report to the EPA any significant odour that is particularly strong or lasting.
The EPA is not the only agency that has been working intensively on dealing with this issue. In order to further improve the monitoring of meteorological conditions at the Mugga Lane site, ACT NoWaste is in the process of purchasing a weather station that can be placed at the active landfill tipping face to record wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity and rainfall data. This information will be available for ACT NoWaste and the EPA to view via a web-link, and it is hoped that the increased precision of data collection will assist with any future odour investigations.
ACT NoWaste is also in the process of engaging an odour management expert to provide advice on odour monitoring at the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre. In addition, ACT NoWaste will be commissioning a suite of operational management plans for the Mugga site including odour management.
Further, operations of the landfill require an environmental authorisation issued and monitored by the Environment Protection Authority under the Environment Protection Act 1997. It is important to note that a condition of the authorisation requires the authorisation holder to submit an environment management plan acceptable to the EPA. The management plan identifies all activities that may have an adverse impact on the environment or the potential to cause environmental harm and details the mechanisms employed to prevent or minimise the impact of these activities. The approved management plan for the landfill is regularly monitored by the EPA for compliance, with site visits to check a range of operational activities.
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