Clean-up crews have moved in to take away Wollongong City Council's controversial soil mounds, which were found to be contaminated with asbestos fragments after they were piled along the old Princes Highway in a bid to stop illegal dumpers.
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Council contractors started removing the 10 piles of construction waste between Sublime Point and Waterfall on Monday, with the complete removal expected to take about a week.
The council has been working with Clearsafe Environmental Solutions to develop a fill removal plan, which has been approved by the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
General manager David Farmer said he wanted to "assure the community every precaution is being taken to ensure this soil is removed in a safe and timely manner".
Mr Farmer said placing the mounds along the highway to prevent other people from dumping illegal waste had been "done with the best of intentions, although its deployment was flawed".
"We're doing everything we can to rectify this matter because we share the community's concerns that low levels of bonded asbestos [fibro] was found in the barriers and the worksites the soil was taken from. The process failures which led to the use of inappropriate fill material in the construction of the physical barriers along the old Princes Highway will form part of an independent review by the NSW government's Internal Audit Bureau."
Councillors voted unanimously to commission a review into the asbestos bungle at last week's council meeting.
The EPA's waste and resource recovery director Steve Beaman said the state watchdog was overseeing the council's clean-up, which involved "best practice techniques and on-site independent air quality monitoring to ensure asbestos fibres aren't released into the air".
Mr Beaman said the council would also ensure soil and sediment areas were asbestos free and that all materials were disposed of at an EPA licensed landfill site.
"The EPA will review the progress of Wollongong City Council throughout the duration of the clean-up and will check air quality readings daily," he said.
The council warned there may be some minor traffic delays.