National broadband network subcontractors and a Bendigo mining licencee are under investigation for allegedly littering crown land with industrial waste, a byproduct of the NBN installation, the Environment Protection Authority has revealed.
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The EPA were tipped off before Christmas about rubbish dumping on land beside the Midland Highway in Huntly.
The rubbish heap contains sections of plastic cable conduit and remnants of ripped up footpaths.
There are also several piles of grey mud, dug up during the NBN build, left on the block of crown land.
Doug Cahill of Bendigo Extractive Industries, the company which holds a mining licence for the Midland Highway site, said he gave permission for NBN subcontractor FTS Construction to store vehicles on the land.
He also knew drilling mud would be piled onto the property temporarily.
“If it's a temporary matter, it doesn't matter,” Mr Cahill said.
FTS Construction general manager Carl Norton, whose Melbourne-based company is subcontracted to complete part of the NBN build in Bendigo, said Mr Cahill gave his approval for other waste to be left on the land temporarily.
"We did tell him that, he was agreeable to that and he was okay with that," Mr Norton said.
Mr Norton said the waste belonged to his company and it would be removed at "two to three-month intervals" over the next six to nine months.
"I know that I'm going to do the right thing and remove it, because I have to," Mr Norton said.
"It might be a little bit unsightly but it is going to be removed."
It was inefficient to transport waste to landfill immediately, he said, and the cost of doing so would make his NBN contract “unattractive”.
The same process was used during FTS Construction's work on the NBN in Melbourne, Ballarat and Geelong.
Mr Norton was not aware the mining site was also crown land until last Wednesday.
His company is contracted to complete drilling and cable hauling for the NBN installation in Bendigo.
The dumping occurred despite NBNCo’s health, safety and environmental policy requiring employees, consultants and contractors take “reasonable care that their acts do not adversely affect the health and safety of themselves, others or the environment in which [they] operate”.
Its website also explains the NBN intends on being a network “that lowers environmental impact”.
The website for FTS Construction tells visitors the business keeps abreast of environmental laws and is open to environmental concerns being raised by the community.
“FTS Construction is conscious of the effect on the environment generated from our work activities,” the website read.
The EPA inspected the property last week, along with staff from the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, the body which issues mining licences in Victoria.
Acting EPA north west regional manager Danny Childs said the team found concrete, plastics, bricks and drums of waste liquid on the Midland Highway lot.
“The matter is currently under investigation and EPA is working closely with [DEDJTR] to ensure the issues are resolved,” Mr Childs said.
The agency will look into the source of the waste as well as the mining licensee.
A spokesman for DEDJTR, the government agency that issued mining licences, said it was a licensee’s responsibility not to cause environmental impacts to the land being mined.
He also said waste from other sites was not permitted onto mining licences without EPA approval.
Additional uses for the site required approval from the EPA and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, which manages the crown land in question, another DEDJTR spokesperson said.