Zoe Kenny
The Save the Food Bowl Alliance (SFBA), which is campaigning to stop the construction of an industrial waste dump at Hattah-Nowingi, 50 kilometres from Mildura, in north-west Victoria, has called for the seven days leading up to April 26 to be a "Paint the Town Red Week". On that day, an environmental effects statement (EES) panel on the proposed dump will commence hearings in Mildura.
Residents of towns in the area will be asked to wear red ribbons, symbolising opposition to the dump, and the towns themselves will be covered with stickers and posters calling for the proposed dump to be scrapped.
The campaign against the dump is now entering into its third year. The SFBA is a coalition of residents from 14 towns in the area, as well as farmers, environmentalists, the Murray Mallee Trades and Labour Council and the Mildura Rural City Council.
The campaign has been marked by large public displays of opposition, including a protest by 1800 people who travelled from Mildura in October last year to take their "no dump" message to the Victorian parliament.
The campaign is one of a string of community campaigns against industrial waste dumps in Victoria over the last several years.
In May 1998, a 15,000-strong meeting at the Werribee racecourse kicked off a two-year campaign that eventually led to the defeat of a Kennett government plan to build a waste dump in Werribee. It led to more stringent laws regarding the disposal of hazardous industrial waste, greater use of recycling, and requirements that waste be safely contained rather than used as landfill and that the siting of waste dumps be determined according to strict criteria.
The state government was forced to go back to the drawing board in order to come up with a proposal for an appropriate site for the containment of Victoria's industrial waste.
In late 2002, three new sites were proposed. However, as details of the sites became known it was clear that these were not appropriate either. One was on a flood plain, thereby increasing the risk of waste leakage. Another had a high risk of leaching into groundwater and the third was in the middle of farm land.
The three sites were subsequently withdrawn as options due to community opposition and in April 2004 the Hattah-Nowingi site was announced.
According to the summer 2005-06 issue of Chain Reaction magazine, rather than being designed as a containment facility, the Hattah-Nowingi dump will be a landfill, similar to the proposed dump at Werribee that was rejected and resulted in the new post-2000 industrial waste policy. Landfill is far more likely to result in the leaching of chemicals into the groundwater.
If the governments plans goes ahead, the site will become the depository for 30,000 tonnes of waste per year — five to 10 truckloads a day — for at least 30 years.
According to studies by the environmental consultancy group Biosis, employed by the government to assess the suitability of the site, the dump will be built in an area that is home to 135 indigenous species, including five species listed as nationally endangered, including the Maleefowl and Emu-wren. The studies also resulted in the area being given the highest possible environmental rating due to the pristine state of the Mallee vegetation.
The SFBA campaign material labels the dump "too big a risk". Along with its potential threat to native vegetation and animal species, the dump will have many other potentially detrimental environmental effects. Any leaching of the waste will reach the close-to-surface groundwater and will potentially find its way into the Murray River, which is only 12km from the site — possibly contaminating the main source of Adelaide's drinking water.
Any contamination of groundwater will most likely affect the nearby Hattah Lakes wetlands and the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park.
The proposed dump site is also in the middle of the largest food-producing area in Victoria. Toxic contamination of the area's groundwater could affect crops.
Residents are also concerned about the daily trucking of toxic waste to the site over a 500km route, through numerous towns, from Melbourne. This would increase the risk of toxic spills.
According to the April 11 Sunraysia Daily, the EES panel hearing may be delayed as a result of an investigation instigated by the Mildura Rural City Council to push for the disqualification of the panel's chairperson, Professor Bill Russell. The council claims he is too close to the Bracks government to be objective about the dump proposal.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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