Company has court win over licence to dump slag in Wollongong swamp

The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) had revoked Mimosa Rehabilitations Pty Ltd's licence to dump slag from the old Port Kembla Copper Smelter at the wetlands site off Windang Rd.

Mimosa challenged this in the Land and Environment Court, arguing the licence should not be revoked until after its plans for the 12.8 hectare site had been made clear.

Its plans for the site - modifying its consent to allow another 15 years' to dump slag and extract sand - had been refused by Wollongong City Council in February this year.

The council's planners refused the proposal on several grounds, including that it presented "unacceptable potential environmental and social risks", was not in the public interest, hadn't been shown to be a suitable site, and that Mimosa hadn't provided adequate information on the plans.

Nor was it substantially the same as the original consent, so shouldn't be dealt with by way of a modification.

But Mimosa still had the possibility to appeal against this decision, and argued that it had not finished deciding whether it wanted to appeal, so the licence should not be revoked.

At conciliation meeting organised by the court between Mimosa and the EPA, the agreed to not revoke the licence yet, and simply suspend it instead, until Mimosa has decided what to do.

The licence permits the extraction of about 1.5 million tonnes of sand from the site, and "emplacement" there of about 3 million tonnes of metallurgical slag produced from the Port Kembla smelter.

In her decision acting Land and Environment Court commissioner Nicola Targett said she was satisfied the the EPA's revocation notice should itself be revoked on three grounds.

The applicant was "still considering its position in relation to the refusal of the modification application", the outcome of this or an extension of time would "affect the scope and operation" of the licence, and the parties had agreed that the licence would be suspended instead of revoked until the council process was finished.

Mimosa's plans, what could be seen of them, caused an outcry among residents of Primbee, who have loudly opposed any move to continue dumping material there.

The Port Kembla copper smelter has long been closed, decommissioned and demolished, so Mimosa won't be receiving any more slag for "emplacement" there.

But residents have voiced concerns over the potential for other types of waste to be received.

The EPA had approved the Environment Protection Licence in 1999; this allowed for "coal washery reject of slag landfilling" and "waste disposal (application to land)" at the premises by Port Kembla Copper Pty Ltd.

The waste allowed was Virgin Excavated Natural Material (VENM) "for engineering purposes, such as construction of roads and as cover material".

Mimosa Rehabilitations bought the site on November 25, 2022, and alarmed residents by starting some kind of works on Boxing Day that year.