Home is not so sweet for residents

BROOKLAND Greens residents can breathe a sigh of relief now that the emergency methane gas status has been downgraded, Casey’s chief executive says.
The CFA last Thursday told residents the emergency classification at the Cranbourne estate was reduced and it was safe for them to return to or remain in their homes.
The downgrade comes nearly two months after the CFA advised residents to relocate.
City of Casey chief executive Mike Tyler welcomed the downgrade to a “recovery situation” and said the news provided a solid platform for residents to continue restoring community spirit in the estate.
But Brookland Greens resident Terry Fox, who remained in his home, said his life was far from returning to normal and the feeling among some residents continued to be one of frustration and discontent.
“They are still saying you can’t do this and you can’t do that in your home, so I would forget about normality in our lives,” Mr Fox said.
“We’ve still got all of these things we have to do to make sure we are safe. There is no control of your own life yet.”
The CFA has advised residents to continue to be vigilant by reporting the detection of any gas build-up in or on their homes. It has urged residents to ensure confined spaces were ventilated and to avoid ignition sources in confined spaces. Mr Tyler said he understood it may take some time for residents’ lives to fully return back to normality after the crisis broke.
“Moving to a landfill management scenario means they (residents) will now be able to focus on returning their lives back to some semblance of normality, which for some may take many months or even years,” Mr Tyler said.
“The affected residents have gone through a harrowing ordeal in the last two months.”
Mr Tyler said the council would continue mitigation works at the Stevensons Road closed landfill, which he said had been very successful.
He said 300 monitors had been installed in 282 homes in the Cranbourne estate, and 95 per cent of the in-home gas detection monitors have not had a single reading of methane.
The council has drilled holes on the base of the landfill and inserted pipes to extract the gas.
A large drilling rig is on the site to drill a further nine gas bores during the next month.
Mr Tyler said more than 30 families relocated and nine of those had not returned.