Mangrove Mountain landfill discharge water flowing into Jilliby Conservation area and Stringy Bark Creek.

25 June 2025

 

“IT is time for the NSW Government to stand up for the security and safety of our drinking water and demand a full independent Inquiry into both the former Gosford City Council and the EPA’s historic and ongoing failure to discharge its statutory responsibilities,” said Chair of the Community Environment Network (CEN), Mr Gary Chestnut.

 

Mr Chestnut said he was relieved that Member for Gosford, Liesl Tesch MP, had referred a CEN request for an independent inquiry to the NSW Environment Minister, Hon Penny Sharpe MLC.

 

Following its most recent detection of elevated levels of ammonia 80 metres downstream from the site and PFAS in nearby groundwater monitoring bores, the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) issued a prevention notice to Verde Terra Pty Ltd, the operator of the landfill.

 

“This is not an isolated or a new problem,” Mr Chestnut said.

 

“Analysis of surface water monitoring results available on the EPA’s public register shows that ammonia levels reached 355 times the default water quality guideline in January.

 

“Subsequent rainfall in the catchment appears to have diluted the pollutant to seven times above the guideline but this must not be seen as mitigation.

 

“To rely on the adage ‘the solution to pollution is dilution’ is dangerous and highlights an unacceptable approach to risk management in the drinking water catchment of 350,000 residents.”

 

CEN acknowledges the EPA’s recent regulatory action, but it again begs the question the community has been asking for close to two decades: Why are elevated levels of ammonia and PFAS present in the first place?

 

“The answer lies in the EPA’s failure to discharge its statutory responsibilities including failing to enforce licence conditions, permitting unlawful expansion of waste operations, and ignoring its obligations on no fewer than 11 occasions.

 

“Equally damning is the former Gosford City Council’s (GCC) failure to enforce the original development consent to permit only 80,000m³ of inert fill in Area B, which by September 2012 had received of 800,000m³ of general waste – more than 10 times the approved amount, plus 100,000 m3 of fill outside any approved area.Page 2 of 5

 

“Over 85% of this waste mound lacks any effective leachate barrier and that is why our conservative estimate places the annual volume of escaping leachate at up to 3 million litres, leaching into both the aquifer and the Central Coast’s drinking water catchment.

 

“Leachate management infrastructure remains grossly inadequate. The original 100,000-litre pond cannot handle leachate from the existing 500,000 tonnes of waste.

 

“The current ammonia and PFAS are symptoms of operational failure and the inevitable outcome of nearly two decades of regulatory neglect.

 

“The legal proceedings that once precluded intervention have now concluded. The community, therefore, needs Minister Sharpe to call for an independent investigation or commission of inquiry into this matter.

 

“The investigation should examine, among other issues, how and why the former Gosford City Council entered into a Court Order in 2014 that permitted the excavation of an 850,000 cubic metre excavation pit, which was subsequently authorised to be backfilled and overtopped with up to 2,400,000 cubic metres of waste material.

 

“In effect, that Court Order enabled the establishment of a regional waste facility within the Council’s drinking water catchment, without any environmental assessment or community consultation.

 

“It is essential that we ensure this scale of mismanagement never happens again, not here, nor anywhere else in NSW.”

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