Wyndham council has awarded tenders for the construction of, and materials to build, Werribee tip’s next cell – despite its construction still being before the courts.
The council last week awarded contracts totalling more than $11.4 million to construct cell five at the Wests Road refuse disposal facility and for the purchase of geomembrane and geosynthetic materials for the cell’s construction.
The council will head to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a five-day hearing starting on May 21 to contest a Western Region Environment Centre appeal of the Environment Protection Authority’s decision to approve an expansion of Werribee tip.
The expansion would allow the council to build four cells, over 25 years, that can reach up to 29 metres above natural ground level – the height limit enforced on the tip’s existing cells.
Councillor Mia Shaw said awarding the tenders would ensure that construction on cell five could quickly begin once the matter is resolved.
Wyndham council city operations director Stephen Thorpe has previously told Star Weekly that the tip would “run out” of space in November this year due to the legal battle.
From then until March or April next year, the earliest the new cell could be in operation, council would be unable to accept waste, aside from regular Wyndham kerbside collections.
Harry van Moorst from Western Region Environment Centre said he was unfazed.
“We have no problem with that, so long as they realise that they should be keeping [waste] in the ground, and should be going for a cell-by-cell works approval, not a 25-year approval,” he said.
“They’re our two major demands.”
