By Violet Li
Was 2024 another year for the City of Casey people to seek justice? The answer manifested itself when the Supreme Court landed the bombshell judgment mid-year that Hallam Road landfill operator Veolia was found to have breached its licence and the general environmental duty in the case against its neighbour, Winsome Anderson.
The Anderson family, who own a 38-hectare farmland east of the landfill, commenced the legal proceedings against Veolia in April 2022, accusing the landfill operator of breaching its licence and the general environment duty and interfering with the potential use of their land. The trial began in November 2023, and the judgement was delivered in July 2024 to accept the two breaches and dismiss the claim of interference.
The court ruled that Veolia breached its licence and the general environment duty by failing to take all practicable measures to prevent emissions of landfill gas (LFG) from exceeding the prescribed levels by up to 80 times in the subsurface geology at the landfill boundary between 1 July 2022 and 30 October 2023.
The practicable measures included placing a final cap on cell 12, ensuring the optimal efficiency of its LFG extraction system, and preparing and implementing a remediation action plan when LFG exceeded trigger levels in monitoring bores.
Design faults in the leachate drainage measures of cells 12 and 13 were revealed during the trial, contributing to the escape of the LFG to Anderson’s farmland.
Veolia was also found by the court to have breached its discovery obligations during the trial by briefing one of the expert witnesses with out-of-date data regarding the performance of the LFG extraction system at the landfill site.
A short time after the judgment, Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria started civil proceedings against the operator in the Supreme Court, alleging a range of serious non-compliance with the State’s environmental protection laws.
For the Anderson family, in the lead-up to the legal move in 2022, years of problems from the neighbouring landfill imposed on their farmland eventually all contextualised into a rejection of a planning permit they applied to the City of Casey to develop horticulture on their land, including constructing greenhouses, which they believed took away their rights to use the land.
At this point, it was under the impression that how to use their farmland was to be at the sway of their neighbours.
Before the horticultural application, the local family had been farming cattle on the land since the late 19th century. Due to concerns about stray rubbish blowing onto the land from the adjacent landfill, the family started to gradually cut down the business. In the latter half of 2022, the family completely ceased grazing cattle.
“We had to do something with the land,” Lindsay Anderson, the son of Winsome Anderson, said.
“The greenhouse precinct appealed to us in terms that it’s linked back to our market gardening roots.
“There were options that we could sell off that we’ve already planned, or we might go co-partnerships, co-development. There’s a lot of options. We hadn’t quite got to that stage. The first stage was to do a preliminary plan layout and get a planning permit.
“In doing the submission to the planning permit, there were several questions asked. We answered all of them. And then the landfill gas migration issue came up.”
The Anderson family first commissioned an LFG Risk Assessment following the request of the Casey planning team. They were then asked to provide an environmental audit that included the design of an in-ground LFG mitigation structure at the boundary of the landfill, which the family believed would cost “a considerable amount of money…without first having the security of a planning permit”. The prospect of getting a permit on conditions was also killed.
“My argument was why do we have to put in the landfill gas migration issue for their problem? Because we didn’t generate the problem. They were generating the problem. Why are we going to go and spend whatever to fix a problem generated by the landfill?” Lindsay said.
“We could also see we could spend all this money, and they’ll come back and say to us, you’ve done the environment audit, it says it’s clear now, but it might not be clear in the future.
“Where’s the end of the string?”
Before the discovery of the design faults in the two cells, the surrounding communities had been troubled by the odour from the landfill for years.
Behind the odour was the landfill gas.
“If they complied, we wouldn’t have this problem,” Lindsay said.
“There were other problems, trucks, noise, dust, rubbish, runoff, but this is too far out.
“I would say if they didn’t have the design faults, we wouldn’t have had this problem. Or it wouldn’t be as severe by a long way.
“Obviously, we were hit in a certain way, but the residents down there have had to put up with the smell and the stink and the mud on the roads and whatever else.”
Veolia has been ordered by the court to prepare a landfill gas remediation action plan, implement the action plan, provide the final cap design for cells 12 and 13 and progress construction of the caps.
The Anderson family is waiting for the operator’s forthcoming action so that they can one day make use of their land.
“At the moment, we are stopped because of the gas coming onto the land. Once that’s cleared, we can put that horticultural planning permit back into action,” Lindsay said.
In the end, the family agreed that it was all for justice.
“At this stage, you tell the whole flinching world how unjust and unfair it is,” Lindsay said.
“To a certain extent, we went on our own. We were brave.
“Justice for the people and justice for us. I still think we’ve still got justices yet to come.
“While we have a court order, we have invested a lot of time, and emotional toll, are out of pocket for costs, still have not got the use of our land back, and it may be years before we do,” he said, adding that Veolia would continue to make large profits while they awaited action.
