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Going, going, saved

17/2/2017

2 Comments

 
Picture
By Catherine Watson
 
Wonthaggi highball stadium … dumped. Cowes Cultural Centre redevelopment … dumped. Wonthaggi wind blades art project … dumped. Inverloch dump … saved.

Bass Coast’s new councillors have been keen to distance itself from their predecessors’ grand plans, dumping project after project to cut costs and rates.
 
Cr Les Larke, in particular, has become the champion of financial parsimony, rejecting the idea that it’s reasonable for councils to borrow money even for projects of clear inter-generational benefit such as swimming pools and cultural centres.
 
But one project has been noticeably immune from the financial scrutiny brought to bear on such fripperies.
 
The Inverloch transfer station will live on, with councillors this week responding to a vigorous and sometimes hysterical campaign to keep it open. Who would have imagined that people had such a passionate attachment to their local tip?
 
When councillors voted last year to close the Inverloch transfer station in September this year, for financial and environmental reasons, it prompted scores of letters to the local papers, a rally in Inverloch and the formation of the Bass Coast Ratepayers and Residents Association (BCRRA).
 
Last November, following the election of the new council, a petition containing 618 signatures requested the council to rescind its decision to close the transfer station.
 
The council went through the motions by calling for a report on the implications of keeping it open. The report estimated the cost of operating the transfer station for the current three days a week at $215,000 in 2017-18, with an estimated $500,000 to bring it up to current best practice operating standards for a transfer station.
 
But financial matters were never going to change anything. On Wednesday, the new councillors voted to keep the transfer station open, to loud applause from the crowded public gallery. Following the vote, jubilant groups gathered outside to celebrate, hailing the heroes of the Battle for Inverloch Tip, BCRRA president Kevin Griffin and Keith Godridge, the former engineer for the Shire of Woorayl, who designed the original landfill that operated on the same site from 1977 to 1985.  
 
And there’s the rub for the legion of lovers of the Inverloch transfer station. The stay of execution for the transfer station may be temporary as the Environment Protection Authority is expected to serve a pollution abatement notice on the council within months ordering it to rehabilitate the tip site.
 
The primary concern is stormwater discharge from the landfill into Screw Creek. The EPA will assess the rehabilitation work undertaken at the site when the tip closed in 1985. Modern rehabilitation of landfill areas is much more demanding than it was 30 years ago and councils are legally required to rehabilitate closed landfills as directed by the EPA.
 
The cost of rehabilitating the landfill site is unknown at this stage, although the council report stated it could be in the region of $1 million. 
2 Comments
Mikhaela
18/2/2017 10:39:52 am

Wow. So basically we have a new Council as bad as the old one- focused only on money except when some loud-mouths make a hoohah in which case they will bow to the whims of the mob. And I had so much hope. Disappointed with the new Council.

Reply
Robbie J Viglietti
15/3/2017 07:27:20 am

The Messiah has a new name; it is not Brian. It is Kevin. Kevin Griffin.

Kevin is worshipped by the Bass Coast Cult of Fiscal Conservatism. He has been preaching the mantra of rate capping and cost cutting since before he stacked the ballot papers with the names of his followers.

Just like the Monty Python political religious satire “Life of Brian”, Kevin’s worshippers follow him without question because they want to believe that someone will save them, even if they don’t actually need salvation.

In a bizarre contradiction to the Council Plan Principle and his own cost cutting gospel, Kevin has theologised that the need to dump hundreds of thousands of dollars/annum in operating costs and millions of dollars in up-grade and clean-up costs into the Inverloch tip is more important than saving money.

Using political manoeuvring that would make Machiavelli proud, Messiah Kevin has managed to convince the new Council to reverse the decision to shut down the toxic time-bomb that is the Inverloch tip.

Even Monty Python could not come up with a plot twist this absurd.

Justification for keeping the site open is based around “community need”; yet a perfectly good transfer station is located only minutes away in Wonthaggi.

A petition of over 600 people is cited. Interesting that over 32% of the petitioners were from Phillip Island. I wonder how many Islanders use the Inverloch transfer station; how many are members of Stand Alone, the co-worshippers of Kevin Griffin…

Every aspect of the decision to keep the transfer station open and delaying the rehabilitation of the site is wrong.

Economically the site is unsustainable. The community deserves to see a cost benefit analysis of keeping the site open. Stand Alone Councillors dumped an investment in the future in the shape of the Cowes Cultural Centre re-development which had a cost benefit ratio of 12.7:1. Is the cost benefit of keeping the Inverloch tip site open better than 12.7:1? Our Councillors must inform our community of the real cost/tonne of keeping the site open.

Environmentally, the site is bounded by the Screw Creek Conservation and Reserve Zone and is within a wildfire overlay area. For these reasons alone the site must be closed down. No one can say what the cost of the clean-up will finally be. Every day the clean-up is delayed, the costs will increase. This is in direct contradiction to the cost cutting scripture of Kevin Griffin.

Societally, in addition to being bounded by a Conservation and Reserve Zone, the site also borders residential property. Residential land use is completely incompatible with the former tip. Have we forgotten the toxic gas fiasco of the Cranbourne landfill site only a few years ago? Residents were forced to flee their homes when methane gas was discovered in houses allowed to be built next to a former landfill. Who will foot the bill should a similar disaster occur here; will it be Kevin Griffin?

The only justification for keeping the site open is political. Keeping the Inverloch tip open is nothing more than a demonstration that the Messiah can deliver can deliver on his promises.

You are correct Kevin; the new crop of Councillors you helped install are not dancing to the tune of the CEO; they are worshipping before you.

I commend Cr Michael Whelan for opposing this ludicrous economically, environmentally and societally unsustainable proposal.

I suppose I will draw solace from the words of words of Monty Python: Always look on the bright side of life…

P.S. I have over 30 years’ experience in the operation of landfill sites, recycling facilities and quarries.

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