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NSW Shadow Environment Minister Penny Sharpe visited the site of the Mangrove Mountain landfill, that was recently the subject of a complex Land and Environment Court judgement, to declare that the right thing would be “no more dumping” at the site but the landfill owner appears to have other ideas.
By Jackie Pearson
“I have been coming here for several years as the community has battled to protect their water catchment,” said NSW Shadow Environment Minister Penny Sharpe as she stood before local journalists at Mangrove Mountain to discuss the latest chapter in this 26-year dumping saga.
“The reality is there has been almost a million tonne of waste just over here dropped into this area in unlined cells well and above whatever the approvals were,” she said pointing in the direction of the landfill which was initially approved by the former Gosford City Council in 1998 as a golf course re-modelling project.
“It should never have happened,” the Shadow Minister said.
“The outcome of this entire saga is just a complete case example of terrible governance, lack of monitoring, and we just cannot allow this continue,” she said.
Sharpe acknowledged that the Land and Environment Court judgement was “very complicated”.
“I think for the community and for everyone who actually cares about our water, one of our most precious resources that any community has, is that we have got to stop future dumping into this site,” she said.
“There has got to be remediation to ensure that toxins are not going into the catchment and there’s got to be an outcome in the future where alternatives to dumping are found elsewhere because this was never appropriate in the first place. It was never supposed to be as big as it has been.
“The community has fought day and night for years to try to get some attention on this…Our water is very precious. The water catchment of Mangrove Mountain is very precious.
“We should be doing everything in our power, whether it is local government, state government, federal government, to ensure that the water remains pristine and useable for the community for generations to come.
NSW needs strong environmental cop
Sharpe said several times that the Mangrove Mountain landfill saga was “a litany of failures” and that the NSW Environmental Protection Authory (EPA) was one of them
“We rely on the EPA. We ask them to do a job which is to protect our environment. They are given quite strong powers, but the real question is why they haven’t been used and why they haven’t been pursued. I am disappointed with the way the EPA has dealt with this. As I said, we should not be sitting here this long after this amount of time when people have been raising the alarm for so long to really still not really have a final solution to making sure that remediation is done and dumping is stopped.
“The EPA have not done their job but there is a litany of failure along this entire process. The real thing now is we can’t change that but we can change what we do in the future and that’s where I think we’ve got to turn our attention.
No more dumping
Sharpe acknowledged that the recent Justice Pepper Land and Environment Court judgement had basically reinforced 2014 court orders that gave Verde Terra the right to continue dumping ithout further approvals so long as they stayed within the bounds of those orders.
The Pepper Judgement also mentioned multiple times that Verde Terra and Council could return to the LEC to have those orders amended. It is now past the period Justice Pepper gave the parties to her judgement to request clarification of her findings or appeal. The Point has asked Central Coast Council to clarify its current position in relation to the Pepper judgement and we will report their response.
Meanwhile, Sharpe said the Central Coast Council Administrator was “the decision maker”.
“I think it is pretty straightforward after all of this disaster, I do think they have to do things: one is no more further approvals for further dumping and I do think they need to look at the process for remediation over time.
“The EPA’s role at a state level – what I want to do is I want to have a strong environmental cop on the beat. If we are elected in March next year I want to see a strong EPA that uses the powers that it’s got. That gets leadership from above, from politicians and those that are in charge to actually pursue people that do the wrong thing.
“The community people who are here today they spent a lot of time through all of these approval processes working up conditions to say it is going to be safe. Those conditions mean nothing if no one monitors them and there’s no compliance. What I want to see is a strong environmental cop on the beat with the resources that it needs to do its job to work closely with communities to actually protect the environment as its job.
“I think we’ve got a few rounds yet with the court on this but I think you can step back from these things. Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. I think there needs to be a genuine discussion of what’s in there, what is it going to take to fix it up and if it is the right thing to continue further dumping and I don’t think it is.”
Seeking comment from the landfill owner
In addition to seeking clarification of Central Coast Council’s position, The Point would also like the opportunity to interview a spokesperson from Verde Terra (VT), the private company that owns the site. They are a very difficult company to track down. We’ve attempted to contact them by emailing their legal representatives in the LEC case but have received no response. We contacted Bingo who made it clear that Verde Terra was sold before Bingo was listed and that Bingo has nothing to do with Verde Terra.
Penny Sharpe’s statement that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should” is admirable but evidence quoted in the Pepper LEC judgement confirms that Verde Terra’s interest in the Mangrove Mountain site is all about making money from dumping waste – not about remodelling a golf course.
Justice Pepper found: “The council drew to the court’s attention evidence to demonstrate that VT always intended to use the land for the purpose of establishing a large scale waste disposal operation, and not to remodel the golf course, and that the 2014 consent orders were in furtherance of this intention.
“In particular, the VT companies were operating as part of the Tartak family waste industry business (which included the Bingo group until Bingo Industries Pty Ltd was floated on the stock exchange in May 2017).
“In July 2011 Tony Tartak purchased VT for $3,000,000.
“His stated principal motivation in doing so was that the company had a contractual right to landfill on the Mangrove Mountain site. At the time of the purchase, the Bingo group operated a substantial skip bin business and various waste recycling/processing centres in Sydney. One of the major costs involved in carrying out the Bingo business was the disposal of non-recoverable waste from the recycling centres. At that time Bingo did not own a landfill facility.
“I accept that VT was not purchased in order to use the land for the purpose of a golf course as the following exchange with Tony Tartak makes tolerably clear:
Q. So when you decided to purchase Verde Terra, I’m suggesting to you that one of the principal motivations was that it had a contractual right to landfill on that site?
A. Yes.
Q. And if I told you that that right was a contractual right which, in turn, appeared to have a 10-year period from 2007 to the five-year option, would that accord with your recollection?
A. No. No, I can’t remember.
Q. I see. The other principal asset that you were aware of, that the Verde Terra company had, was the environment protection licence. Is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. They were the two assets that Verde Terra held which made you want to buy it, that is, the contractual right with the club to carry out landfilling activities and the right under the environment protection licence to carry out waste disposal in landfilling activities. Do you agree?
A. No. What made me want to buy it, was yes, the Environment Protection Licence, yes, and the development consent, that we believe we had on the site, and so my consultants did their due diligence on that site, and they were comfortable that we had the development consent to do landfilling, and that the EPL reflected what we could do on that site, and yeah, that’s what gave me comfort. And the fact that Council was, Gosford City Council was tipping waste there for a number of years, so without due diligence there, that made me comfortable to go ahead with the purchase of the business.
Q. Did your due diligence extend to you in the 1998 consent, or not?
A. I just can’t remember any more. Not me, my consultants.
Q. I see. When you say your consultants, you can’t remember what they told you about the 1998 consent either, is that right?
A. All I remember was that they told me, that this, that the whole, their due diligence all stacked up. They were comfortable with the fact that I could run a landfill there, and build a golf course, and I had the EPL in place, Environment Protection Licence. And what gave them and me comfort was the fact that the Council, Gosford City Council, was tipping waste there for a number of years. That’s what made us comfortable to go on with this purchase of the business.
Q. I see. How much did you pay for the purchase of the business?
A. $3 million.
Q. When was the first time you attended the site, do you remember, reparable to the timing of the sale of the business.
A. It was definitely before, obviously before July 2011, but I can’t remember the exact date. It was definitely before that.
Q. I suggest to you that very prominent when you attended the site was a very large hill of waste, or very large mound of waste, prominent at the site.
A. Yes.
Q. I will put it to you, Mr Tartak, that no one suggested to you that that mound of waste was there in accordance with the development consent, is that right?
A. I missed that question, I’m sorry. It cut out in the middle, I’m sorry. It’s when you move back, actually.
Q. Your consultants didn’t tell you, or give you any comfort, that that hillside of waste was in accordance with the development consent, did they?
A. They told me that everything onsite seemed to be okay. They weren’t specific about the mound or anything else.
Q. I see. There was a big excavation, do you remember that? Big excavated pit?
A. Yes.
Q. What do you say about that, are you saying that your consultants told you that was all okay as well?
A. Yes, they told me that was fine. That was ready to be lined. Are you referring to Cell W?
Q. You noticed Cell W?
A. I noticed Cell W, yes, that was ready to be lined.
Q. Did you ever, yourself, look to see whether Cell W was a feature that was permitted under the 1998 development consent.
A. Not me myself, no. My consultant.
Q. But your consultant told you it was, did they?
A. My consultants told me that the overall site was fine and they didn’t have any issues with me buying the business. They did their DD. They were comfortable with everything they had found, and if I wanted to proceed, I could. And I trusted their advice and I went ahead.
Q. And did they say anything to you about Cell W?
A. Not specifically, no.”
What you can do
1. If you spot illegal dumping or any other acts of environmental damage, you have the right to contact the EPA
2. Do everything you can to recycle, compost and keep as much as possible out of landfill.
3. Watch this space. Journalists at The Point have been covering the Mangrove Mountain landfill story since 2015 and it is not over yet. It’s also a story that has ramifications for towns all over NSW and Australia. This could happen anywhere is one of the major lessons.
