Cloncurry Shire Council has approved a motion to purchase land from the state government as part of its Waste Facilities Master Plan as a site for its new waste facility.
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The council made the decision at its most recent meeting on Tuesday last week.
Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell said the council’s waste strategy has been worked on for over 12 months.
“Our strategy we’ve been working on is to provide the community with a long term solution for the dump, not the most sexy part of the workings of council but a very necessary one,” Cr Campbell said.
“We have to spend the money on a facility anyway, we’re working our way towards something that has a 40 or 50 year lifespan.”
The land on Lot 97 Sedan Dip Road, adjacent to the “dead cattle dump” is owned by the state government and the meeting heard the council may have to pay $250,000 to secure the land.
“We are working through the land tenure issues and at the same time maintaining the standards we should have been maintaining with the existing dump,” Cr Campbell said.
“The work is still ongoing but I’d like to see a formal strategy within 12 months.”
At a community consultation meeting in 2017, Cr Campbell said one of his election campaign promises was to maintain and repair infrastructure to an acceptable standard with the dump needing attention.
The Mayor said Council had to urgently change operations at the Cloncurry Landfill to meet environmental obligations set out by the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.
We are working through the land tenure issues and maintaining the standards we should have been maintaining with the existing dump
- Greg Campbell
“Audits over the last couple of years hadn’t been taken seriously enough,” Cr Campbell said.
Council was faced with significant fines for not complying with Department of Environment and Heritage Protection environmental obligations.