Shire loses stay application on clean-up order

MOORABOOL Shire Council has lost its application for a stay on an order to clean up empty more than 1200 dissolved acetylene cylinders on a nature strip in Merrimu, east of Bacchus Marsh.

The decision, handed down by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) on Wednesday, leaves the Shire liable for the estimated $500,000 cost of removing the cylinders, which are on pallets in two truck trailers at 210 Lerderderg Park Road.

The Shire had asked for a stay on a clean-up order issued by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in June, which designated the Shire responsible for the cylinders because they are on a Crown land reserve.

A furious Moorabool Shire Council mayor, Cr Paul Tatchell, said the municipality now basically had no option other than to comply with the order but did not rule out further action in an attempt to recoup the cost.

Under the terms of the order, the Shire must remove the cylinders – as many as 1250 – by 25 July.

It had argued that it should not be responsible for either removing them or paying for the clean-up because it did not put them there.

Cr Tatchell said the issue highlighted a problem with industrial waste disposal because this could happen anywhere.

He said at least some of the empty cylinders contained asbestos and therefore represented a toxic threat.

Cr Tatchell said he would pursue the matter because other councils and their ratepayers could easily be saddled with similar bills for something they did not control.

“We’d have to get the rules changed,” he said. “There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

In an interview on Ballarat radio, Cr Tatchell said the Minister for the Environment, Steve Dimopoulos, should have stepped in and protected the Shire and its ratepayers.

“We are struggling out here; we’ve just been hit with a half-million-dollar bill and the silence is deafening coming out of Spring Street,” he said.

Before the VCAT hearing, which took place last week, Cr Tatchell said the EPA had been monitoring the containers since at least late last year and questioned why that authority had not acted.

“As a result of EPA inaction, they are now claiming the waste is now the responsibility of Moorabool ratepayers to remove and dispose of safely at a cost of half a million dollars,” he said.

“In our view this is patently unfair and is an unreasonable cost to ratepayers.

“The EPA is punching down onto councils when it should be their responsibility as they were monitoring this situation for many months without Council’s knowledge.

“We’ve had enough of this sort of cost shifting from state government to local councils.”

In a pre-hearing statement, the EPA said: “EPA Victoria issued an Environmental Action Notice to Moorabool Shire Council on 10 June 2025.

“Since March 2025, there has been extensive engagement between the EPA and council regarding this issue.

“EPA is continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the movement of the waste.

“As the matter is now before the tribunal, EPA is unable to provide further comments.”