Casey Council has reassured Brookland Greens residents that methane gas emissions from the Stevensons Road Landfill have not suddenly increased.
By Glen Atwell
BREATHE easy.
That’s the message from Casey Council after it quashed media reports that ‘toxic, potentially lethal gas’ was wafting through streets of the Brookland Greens estate in Cranbourne.
Council has gone to extraordinary lengths to reassure residents that levels of methane gas escaping from the Stevensons Road Landfill have not increased.
In addition to an information leaflet recently distributed to 400 residential letterboxes, council will host a community information day at the entrance to the Brookland Greens estate on Saturday.
Residents will have the opportunity to ask council officers and Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) representatives questions about the closed landfill.
EPA spokesperson Ruth Ward told the News that methane gas does not pose a human health risk at acceptable levels.
“However, at certain levels it can pose both a flammable and explosive risk,” Ms Ward said in a statement.
Casey mayor Janet Halsall said the key point to understand was that emission levels had not suddenly changed.
“What has changed, and the reason why our teams have visited homes, is the EPA’s position on acceptable methane gas levels in residential areas was suddenly, and significantly, reduced from 2.5 per cent to 1 per cent, about 10 days ago by the EPA,” she said.
Teams from Casey and the EPA have tested a total of 61 homes in Brookland Greens for traces of methane gas.
Two houses returned a reading, one of 0.1 per cent and the other 2.4 per cent.
Further investigations were conducted on the house that returned the 2.4 per cent reading, but follow up tests found no traces of landfill gas.
Cr Halsall said public safety was the primary concern of council.
“Residents would be concerned about the possibility of gas in their homes,” she said.
“However most of them were reassured by the visit and understanding the situation has been caused by the new EPA position rather than a change in the level of gas emissions.”
Council has installed 60 gas wells and drilled several bores at the landfill to extract the gas and burn it through flares.
Between July and September, council will continue to test properties for methane gas and will undertake further drilling of wells and trenches.
The Stevensons Road Landfill operated between June 1996 and June 2005 as a municipal tip for the Casey and Frankston Councils under an EPA licence.
Casey has plans to eventually transform the site into public parkland.
The community information day will be held between 10am and 3pm this Saturday at the reserve along Cherryhills Drive.
