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SPORT
Seeking justice By Violet Li Was 2024 another year for the City of Casey people to seek justice? The answer manifested itself when the Supreme Court landed the bombshell judgment mid-year that Hallam Road landfill operator Veolia was found to have breached its licence and the general environmental duty in the case against its neighbour, Winsome Anderson. The Anderson family, who own a 38-hectare farmland east of the landfill, commenced the legal proceedings against Veolia in April 2022, accusing the landfill operator of breaching its licence and the general environment duty and interfering with the potential use of their land. The trial began in November 2023, and the judgement was delivered in July 2024 to accept the two breaches and dismiss the claim of interference. The court ruled that Veolia breached its licence and the general environment duty by failing to take all practicable measures to prevent emissions of landfill gas (LFG) from exceeding the prescribed levels by up to 80 times in the subsurface geology at the landfill boundary between 1 July 2022 and 30 October 2023. The practicable measures included placing a final cap on cell 12, ensuring the optimal efficiency of its LFG extraction system, and preparing and implementing a remediation action plan when LFG exceeded trigger levels in monitoring bores. Design faults in the leachate drainage measures of cells 12 and 13 were revealed during the trial, contributing to the escape of the LFG to Anderson’s farmland. Veolia was also found by the court to have breached its discovery obligations during the trial by briefing one of the expert witnesses with outof-date data regarding the performance of the LFG extraction system at the landfill site. Continued page 4
2024 PEOPLE OF THE YEAR
Lindsay Anderson and Winsome Anderson present a thick album they have been compiling over the years. It shows the stray rubbish blowing onto their land from the adjacent Hallam Road landfill. (Violet Li: 452719)
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