The BCRG Open House/Drop in Session on 8th March 2017 was a great success with sixteen organisations setting up displays and available for the community to approach directly. EPA Victoria also conducted four tours of the air monitoring station in the nearby Brooklyn Reserve throughout the evening. 

There were 86 attendees recorded: 41 residents/community, 14 industry, and 31 others including council and agency staff. This is the highest number of BCRG participants recorded since 2009. Of the residents, 31 were new to BCRG. This result exceeded expectations and indicated that there is still a lot of concern within the local community which is not always registered at the normal BCRG meetings.

The feedback also indicated that the change in timing allowed some people to attend who couldn’t normally.

You can see the full report on this event at  http://www.brooklynip.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BRCG-OpenHouse-SessionSummary-March2017-web-v3.pdf

Images from the event can be seen on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BrooklynCommunityRepresentativeGroup

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2) EPA fines Brooklyn company for illegal tyre storage
22 Mar 2017
Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) has fined Brooklyn company Tyre-Lug Services (Barro Group Pty Ltd) more than $7,700 for failing to comply with a requirement of an EPA notice which required it to reconfigure its tyre stockpiles and reduce the risk of fire at the site.

The company was also fined over $7,700 by EPA earlier this year for storing more than 5,000 equivalent passenger units (EPU) of waste tyres without an EPA licence.

EPA Metro Manager Daniel Hunt said the company’s stockpile had been the equivalent of about 150,000 standard waste car tyres and was an environmental hazard waiting to happen.

“While the stockpile has been greatly reduced, the company still has to comply with the requirements of the EPA notice,” Mr Hunt said.
Read full media release click here

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3) Sunshine Groupe Update and rolling actions
22/03/17 Christian Buxton sent through the following update for the Sunshine Groupe site in Brooklyn:

Engaged environmental consultant to provide aftercare and rehabilitation plan for the site including after use. Environmental consultant on-site weekly to assist with environmental services. Procured and installed various sorting equipment including T70 Trommel screen to process overburden. This will result in more material being recycled/reused and less going back into landfill. Further recycling plant upgrades, ready for operation at end of 16/17 financial year. Increasing the efficiency of the overburden processing. Initial screening rates indicate that Stage 1 (Cell 1AX and 1B) overburden processing is being completed at 400 tonnes per day, at peak processing. WLR have acknowledged the environmental concerns sensitive to the community and have begun overburden processing in cells with less overburden in order to refine the process, therefore limiting the environmental impact to the community.

Cell 5, consolidated and vegetated is considered to be a low environmental risk to the community at this stage. 

Other actions from the previous meetings have been updated and can be seen in the Rolling Actions list click here

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4) The proposed 2017 Brooklyn Community Representative Group