A member of parliament has described the fines handed out for the illegal dumping of hundreds of tyres in Eaglehawk as “clearly inadequate”. 

But the EPA has defended itself by saying it doesn’t set the law – and suggested it might not be the end of the financial pain for the culprits. 

The Environmental Protection Authority fined two men $1820 each this week after finding them responsible for dumping more than 200 tyres in a small block of Crown Land in March. 

On Thursday, member for Northern Victoria Damian Drum took the issue of illegal tyre dumping to State Parliament. 

He said the fines handed out to illegal dumpers this week fell far short of the maximum fines available. 

But EPA executive director of regional services Damian Wells said the fine was the maximum deemed appropriate for an individual under the Environmental Protection Act. 

“The actual dollar value of the penalty is determined by the number of penalty units which is established in the act, and the value of the unit is set by government,” Mr Wells said. 

“Much like the police, the EPA doesn’t determine the law and doesn’t set the penalty per se, we just enforce the legislation.” 

Mr Wells said the EPA could take cases to a court of law to enforce higher penalties, as has occurred in previous cases in which fines of up to $100,000 were issued.

But he said the limited environmental harm in this case and community outrage necessitated “swift resolution”. 

“If it was a higher order offence we could have gone through the courts, which takes more time,” he said. 

“But we believe that it was really important, as always, to swiftly sanction this offence so that the community can see that there was an offence, but within quick time the EPA has acted to hold those offenders to account.

“This is a fantastic result and it does send a deterrent message.”

The executive director of regional services said the EPA was currently undergoing a ministerial review – and said a beef-up of his agency’s authority would be on the table. 

“The government has commissioned an inquiry into the EPA and one thing that is always top of mind for government is – and this is the same for police and other agencies – does the legislation that we currently have in place reflect the contemporary expectations of the community?” he said.

“No doubt that will be something that is grappled with by that ministerial advisory committee.”

Mr Wells said, under the act, the land owner could force the culprit of illegal dumping to cover clean-up costs. 

Because there were syringes dumped near the tyres, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning decided to quickly clean the site up, at a cost of more than $5000.

But Mr Wells said he believed DELWP could retrospectively seek to have those costs covered. 

A DELWP spokesperson said the agency was in discussions with the EPA to “ascertain the details of the offenders for further follow up to recoup clean-up costs”. 

Mr Drum told Parliament on Thursday there was a bigger issue behind the dumping of tyres in bush all over regional Victoria.

“I am staggered that in 2016 we are living in a first-world country and we still cannot find a valuable use for discarded tyres,” he said.

“I would think that answers to our waste and energy issues could be found in European countries, notably Germany, whose reputation as a leader in waste-to-energy technology stands alone.”

Mr Drum said there was a need to make waste-to-energy industries more attractive so that disposal of old tyres turned a problem into an opportunity.

‘Surely we should be doing whatever we need to do develop these industries.”