By Matthew Sims
The Environment Protection Authority [EPA] Victoria has charged MTAW Group Pty Ltd, trading as Melbourne Transport and Warehousing, alleging they failed to minimise the risk of harm after a chemical spill at Altona’s Cherry Creek and Cherry Lake in March.
If found guilty, the Laverton North business would be facing a fine of up to $1.8 million after the EPA alleged the company did not take all reasonable steps to reduce the risk of about 12,000 to 13,000 litres of a detergent known as Teric N9 from flowing into Altona’s Cherry Creek and Cherry Lake reported on March 7 of this year.
EPA has alleged that MTAW Group Pty Ltd failed to minimise risk of harm to human health and the environment from pollution or waste in contravention of its General Environmental Duty [GED] and the company failed to take all reasonably practicable action to reduce the risk of a spill or leak of dangerous goods stored at its Laverton North site.
Under the GED provisions of the Environment Protection Act 2017, a person who is engaging in an activity that may give rise to risk of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste must minimise those risks, so far as reasonably practicable.
EPA chief executive Lee Miezis said the decision to charge the company followed months of issuing regulatory notices to the company to clean up any damage to waterways, which allegedly caused thousands of fish to die.
“EPA and partner agencies were active in managing the incident which began on March 6 this year and continues at the site to this day as the waterway recovers from the impacts on the chemical spill,” he said.
“The GED makes protection of the environment everyone’s business, and our enforcement action today sends a strong message to polluters that we will hold them to account.”
