Residents in Melbourne's west were horrified to learn this week that a tip fire that's been burning for nearly three years will likely take several more months to put out.
The fire at the Sunshine Landfill was first identified in November 2019, after air got into compacted waste.
Since then, its owners, Barro Group, have put out three hotspots at the tip.
The last one was meant to be put out this week, but that deadline has come and gone.
This last hotspot, deep under a pile of waste in a former quarry, is causing headaches for the owners, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and, of course, locals.
They have been living within a few hundred metres from a pile of burning rubbish for nearly three years.
But let's start with the tip owners
Barro Group spokesman Steve Murphy said the owners never agreed to the August 22 deadline that was imposed by the Environment Protection Authority.
"It was just never physically possible," he said.
He explained before workers could put out the fire, they had to drill down into the waste to find the hotspots.
Once workers found the fires, they had to put them out. That involves using heavy machinery to scoop rubbish from the top of the heap, and driving it to the other side of the tip to cool down overnight. Every night, the burning waste needs to be covered up.
And there is about 1 million cubic metres of waste in the landfill.
At the top of the pile, where the waste is cooler, the process can move along fairly smoothly.
"That can be a 'dig and dump', pretty quickly," Mr Murphy said.
But as the workers get closer to the fire at the bottom, the buckets of waste can be up to 150–180 degrees Celsius.
"When you get to warm-to-hot waste, we've got people standing where the dig is, putting water on it, we've got another individual temperature-checking every bucket as it goes into the dump truck," he said.
With hot waste, up to 500 cubic metres of waste can be extracted per day, if nothing else goes wrong.
Rain and staff shortages also to blame
Mr Murphy said the company had lost seven working weeks' worth of work in the past six months, including 26 days due to wet weather.
"It's not just the day that it rains, it could be another day or half day following that for the crews to get the site back into a safe state," he said.
"And by that I mean scraping roads, putting additional gravel down on roads because you've got very heavy machinery working there, and given the amount of cover material we have to use, the minute you get a bit of rain it all turns to clay."
He said they lost nine days due to staff illness, including COVID.
"The fact of the matter is we're in the midst of the worst labour shortage we've seen in Australia across every industry for the better part of 35 years," he said.
"You just can't turn around, because someone calls and says, "mate, I can't come in for the next seven days because I've got the 'rona,' you know, you're ringing an employment agency and saying we need someone here at 11 this morning — you've got Buckley's'," he said.
"It's not an excuse, it's just the reality."
He said the fire should be out by the end of the year and the company is communicating with locals twice a day through a Facebook page.
EPA investigating delays
The EPA's western regional manager, Steve Lansdell, said the authority refused Barro Group's application to extend the deadline until 17 February 2023 after considering whether it had taken all reasonable steps to meet the 22 August deadline.
"We've had our officers out there inspecting the site and checking compliance with the final deadline, which was August 22," he said.
"So now we're escalating our investigation with a view for any potential enforcement options there."
He said those enforcement options included prosecution, revoking the operator's licence and fines.
In September 2021, the EPA suspended Barro Group's licence to operate after the company failed to meet deadlines to put the fires out.
That means the tip can't accept any more waste, at least for now.
Residents have had enough
Residents like Nicole Power continue to report their complaints about odour to the EPA, sometimes multiple times a day.
"Last night I smelt it, it was that horrible cattle-truck smell," she said.
She said living 350 metres from a tip fire for years was affecting her mental health.
"I'm really tired of being woken up by odour, I'm really tired and drained of not wanting to open the front door in case I smell it — it's just not fair," she said.
"You can't escape it because you're at home."
She said residents were concerned about their health.
"We have every right to breathe clear air — but apparently if you live in the western suburbs near this landfill, you can't," she said.
A statement on the EPA website said the authority had heard community concerns about air quality.
"Air quality monitoring by both EPA and the landfill operator has found low risk for long-term community health," the statement said.
"EPA expects this to continue but still requires the company to continue its air monitoring at the site."
The EPA is hosting a community meeting in Keilor this week.
