Liberal Party’s Position on the Southern Metropolitan Regional Council’s (SMRC) Regional Resource Recovery Centre (RRRC)
Dr. Mike Nahan
Liberal Candidate for Riverton26th August 2008
Assessment of the situation
1. The composting operation of the RRRC is not performing satisfactorily in terms of odour emissions, costs and impost on ratepayers and recycling goals. It needs to be either improved dramatically, moved or phased out altogether.
2. The material recycling and green waste operations of the RRRC are operating well and should be retained and promoted.
3. The general public and the electorates of the member councils of the SMRC who are not affected by the plant’s odour emissions, are not aware of the plant’s failings and, not surprisingly, support the plant’s continued operation.
4. The Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), the state agency responsible for regulating the plant’s emissions including odour emission, has shown consistent reluctance to enforce the licensing conditions imposed on the composting plant for monitoring odour and odour emissions. Specifically, the plant has been allowed to operate without a continuous system for odour monitoring and in spite of strong evidence of odour emissions in excess of the licensed standards.
5. The absence of a continuous odour monitoring system has resulted in the lack of data on and the uncertainty over the severity, extent and source of odour emissions. This has led to the composting plant operating when it should not have been allowed to do so, and it has limited the DEC’s ability to enforce odour standards.
6. The State Labour Government’s policy of phasing out all land fills by 2020 and not allowing high temperature incineration of waste - the two main alternatives to composting – has effectively left the SMRC and the State Government without an alternative and locked into maintaining the composting plant.
7. The SMRC and its member councils have borrowed around $50 million to fund the plant and are therefore reluctant to abandon it.
What will a Liberal Government do?
1. It will require the DEC to release immediately its study on the odour problem conducted in May 2008. If this study finds that the composting plant has been in breach of odour standards or odour licensing requirements, the composting plant will be shut down.2. It will commission an independent, wide-ranging investigation into the plant including its odour emissions, financial performance, the market for the compost produced, environmental performance including the SMRC claims of greenhouse gas savings and its recycling performance. The investigation will be commissioned by the State Government and will be independent of the SMRC and the DEC.
3. If the composting plant is shut down as a result of the DEC’s odour study of May 2008, it will not be allowed to re-open, if at all, until the independent investigation is completed.
4. If the composting plant is found by the independent investigation to be at risk of further odour emissions it will not be allowed to stay open or to re-open, as the case may be.
5. If the independent investigation considers that the plant can be fixed at a reasonable cost and be odour-emission free, the SMRC will be required to make the needed investment and to fund an on-going/ continuous odour monitoring system to be established and carried out by an independent group with community input and participation.
6. If the plant is allowed to re-open but emits odour again, it will be closed permanently if the problem cannot be solved with reasonable means.
7. For the longer term, we will develop new approaches to waste management and provide a long term and sustainable outlet for waste. We will consider/investigate the development of modern and environmentally sustainable landfill systems to replace existing and unsustainable ones.
8. We will lead the development of an integrated waste disposal facility to provide an alternative outlet for SMRC wastes. It will be outside the metro area and provide a cheaper and better alternative to the composting plant in Canning Vale.
9. We will enter into discussions with the SMRC and its member councils to assist them with meeting their debt liabilities associated with the composting plant.
Dr. Mike Nahan
Liberal Candidate for Riverton
mike.nahan@wa.liberal.org.au