Environment Protection Authority officers laid the charge after inspections and aerial photographs of the landfill on Davis Rd taken by an EPA drone over several days in January 2023.
The company pleaded guilty in Echuca Magistrates’ Court to a breach of the company’s EPA licence to operate the landfill.
The court heard the company’s EPA licence required it to cover the landfill’s working face with soil or inert waste at the end of each day to, among other things, contain litter, and to use fencing and other measures to stop litter from spreading.
The company’s licence also required it to cover waste in the cells at all times.
EPA officers inspected the site in September and November 2022 and provided compliance advice, which gave the company a chance to fix the problems and avoid prosecution, but when they returned in January, the problems were still there.
In its defence, the company told the court that flooding and a shortage of staff had hampered operations at the landfill.
An EPA inspection, in April 2023, found the exposed waste problems identified during the earlier inspections had been rectified.
The magistrate fined the company, without recording a conviction, but warned any potential offenders that but for the plea of guilty, she would have convicted the company and imposed a $100,000 fine.
The court also required the company to publish the nature of the offending and the penalty imposed in a local newspaper and pay EPA $4448 in costs.
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