We promised to keep you up to date with the approval process for the Energy from Waste plant that Dial a Dump wants to build across the M4 from Minchinbury. This afternoon, the Department of Planning and Environment recommended the plant not be approved. We now have to wait to see if the Independent Planning Commission (formerly the Planning Assessment Commission) accepts or rejects this recommendation. This is a significant victory for all those who have been campaigning against the proposal.
The full DPE planning assessment can be read here:
Mayor Stephen Bali MP has been campagning against this proposal since it first came to council a couple of years ago. His latest release follows. Feel free to pass the message on.
Blacktown City Mayor Stephen Bali says the Department of Planning and Environment’s rejection of the Energy from Waste incinerator proposal is yet another nail in its coffin.
“But now the NSW Government needs to put a stake in its heart,” Blacktown City Mayor, Stephen Bali MP said.
The NSW Government needs to take note when its planners, the NSW Environment Protection Authority, NSW Health, and tens of thousands of people living in Western Sydney and a parliamentary inquiry representing Labor, the Christian Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals unanimously say this incinerator should not be built.
“We now have to see if the Independent Planning Commission (formerly the Planning Assessment Commission) follows suit.
“My major concern is that Dial a Dump may not take the Commission’s no for an answer,” he said.
“Like a vampire rising from the dead, this project needs a stake through its heart to make sure it is never seen again.
“That’s why, as the Member for Blacktown, I am moving legislation designed to ban the development of energy from waste projects anywhere in the Sydney Basin and place a moratorium on any future developments without further scientific examination and oversight,” he said.
Mayor Bali said he also strongly supports the call for a “fit and proper person” test be applied to anyone wanting to operate an EfW incinerator in NSW.
“These things are too big and too dangerous for anyone with a poor environmental track record to be involved,” he said.
“The risk is simply too great.”
According to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Energy from Waste technology, since 2005, companies associated with the proponent of the Eastern Creek Incinerator have received:
• three written warnings,
• nine penalty notices,
• five official cautions, and
• one prosecution.
In addition, the Inquiry found that between 2012 and July 2017, there have been 581 environmental complaints associated with the proponent and his companies.
The report said: “there is a significant history of non-compliance in the company’s 33-year history, including the mishandling of asbestos … the proponent and his leadership team appear unwilling to accept responsibility for past mistakes …”.
Mayor Bali said the Department of Planning and Environment’s finding will also cheer the:
- 1,000 objectors who lodged submissions to the DPE
- the 500 residents who attended our community forum at Minchinbury in February and make it clear they don’t want this project to go ahead and
- the 20,000 people who have signed two petitions calling for it to be stopped.
In light of the recommendations and the overwhelming lack of support for the project in Western Sydney, Blacktown City Council calls on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to stop the Dial A Dump proposal to burn waste at Eastern Creek.
Instead, invest more in encouraging recycling and the creation of a zero waste economy.
Mayor Bali will tomorrow be presenting his private members bill to the Legislative Assembly seeking a ban on the development of energy from waste projects anywhere in the Sydney Basin and placing a moratorium on any future developments without further scientific examination and oversight.
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