However, councillors have stopped short of agreeing to create a publicly accessible database of potentially polluted properties, amid concerns this could needlessly alarm residents, open the city to legal action or affect property prices.

Independent councillors Greg Petty and Vicki Curran proposed the public database in a notice of motion on Monday, saying residents were not being made aware of numerous contaminated sites.

Click here to see potentially contaminated sites across NSW.

Independent councillors Greg Petty and Vicki Curran proposed the public database in a notice of motion on Monday, saying residents were not being made aware of numerous contaminated sites.

Cr Curran argued residents should be informed of pollution “hot spots” and known contaminants that were in their area.

“If a concerned young family want to know some of the contaminants that could have an impact in this city, that information should be provided to them,” she said.

Cr Petty highlighted a discrepancy between the number of properties listed as contaminated by the EPA, and the number known to council.

Planning and environment director Andrew Carfield confirmed to councillors that there were roughly 3250 Wollongong properties that had some form of land contamination notation. 

He also said there were about “2700-odd” that were subject to a notation under the contaminated land management act.

In contrast, the EPA lists just under 50 Wollongong properties on its online contamination database.

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Explaining this difference, Mr Carfield said the council’s “burden of proof” was lower than the EPA, and may include sites where contamination is minor or has not been verified.

Despite Crs Curran and Petty’s push, other councillors called for calm with most saying they believed “scaremongering” over contamination was not necessary.

Labor councillor Ann Martin said she was keen for the council to do more on creating a contaminated lands register, but said councillors should not needlessly alarm residents

“Contaminated land can be anything, from where there was a previous fibro shed, an industrial area where there’s clearly been activity, a petrol station, a site where the fire brigade has been operating or former airfields,” she said.

Leigh Colacino agreed with Cr Martin, saying the creation of a public database could “scare the hell out of every land owner in Wollongong”.

He also worried could dent the value of people’s homes if they were listed on the register for minor contamination, such as having fibro cladding or lead pipes.

Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery was worried the creation of a register highlighting specific properties could risk understating the city’s pollution problem, due to its history of heavy industry.

“I question this motion, because if it was implemented it would create false understanding of the contamination issue – that is, only those lands or properties identified as problematic, when the entire local government should be under scrutiny,” he said.

Other councillors said they were keen to see better management for contaminated land, but said they wanted more information before creating an online database.

With this in mind, Greens’ Jill Merrin suggested the council provide a confidential briefing to councillors to detail the costs, risks and benefits of contaminated land register. Future councillors would then decide whether to actually create the register.

Councillors voted unanimously to support this motion.

Why the discrepancy in between EPA and council numbers? – George Takacs

Andrew Carfield:

The Contaminated Land Management Act points out certain forms of contamination that have significant risk to human health or the environment, where the council is obliged to notify the EPA.

The EPA also licences certain land use activities, and by having that licence – essentially a licence to pollute – they would list certain activities or known contamination within their register.

Council lists many more properties on our land information register which we would use to inform future planning decisions, for example, on a development application.

If we have a neighbour that reports an incident that could have led to contamination on a site, we know that, and we have that on our land information system. When a development application is lodged on that site in the future, we would ask the proponents to do a piece of work to confirm whether or not that site is contaminated. The burden of proof isn’t as high in council’s system as it is on the EPA.

What is or are the legal ramifications? – David Brown

Mr Carfield:

There are different commercial interests around land and property, which we would need to consider.

So if we openly produce a register with inaccurate information, or information that we can’t verify, that could lead to claims that that information is incorrect or has led to misleading decisions based on that information.

At the moment the protections that exist by our insurers… is linked to it having a planning function.

Council is afforded some certain protections when the release of that information is done through a section 149 certificate, but if that information was published openly through a web based register, council would need to carefully consider what level of information to include.

At the moment, the council would probably generously add into that register suspected contamination, perhaps in many instances without verifying whether it exists or not.

What actions may be required, but that means that quite a bit of work to work out what level of info, what level of scrutiny we should use to check that information and what the legal implications arising from that open register.

Have any other NSW councils moved to produce a publicly searchable land register? – Chris Connor

Mr Carfield:

Our search of other councils revealed we were quite consistent with other councils.

We had heard some other councils may produce an online register put when we contacted those councils they told us access to that information was through the section 149 planning certificates.

As far as I’m aware, there’s not another council that produces an online register in this form.

How do residents or prospective buyers find out about contamination? – Chris Connor

Mr Carfield:

The due diligence of discovery process for people seeking to purchase land has a compulsory requirement to obtain at Section 149 planning certificate.

However, typically you obtain that for the land in question and I think in part, this notice of motion is dealing with the question of: what if you’re buying adjoining land.

It would be more difficult to expect a purchaser to obtain multiple certificates.

The EPA has an online register, but this is restricted to a register of contamination that is likely to cause significant harm to health and or the environment.

The Act being referred to is the Contaminated Land Management Act 1997