EPA Victoria, Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times

Clean-up of Lemon Springs continues. We have removed waste from 30 of the 32 burial sites. We have cleaned up 16 of the sites and filled them with clean soil. Waste removal is underway in the last two sites.

We have removed over 1,500 tonnes of liquid waste and 7,500 tonnes of contaminated soil from the site. We have discovered more than 25,000 tonnes of contaminated soil. The contaminated soil is being treated at a facility onsite. Once we treat the soil we use it to backfill.

We continue to remove acetylene cylinders. We have removed more than 43,000 cylinders to date. We are working with industry to create a new facility to dispose of the cylinders. This facility is the first of its kind and located in Stawell. Enviropacific was the successful bidder for the new disposal facility. We chose them after a national tender process. Their first task is to manage the Lemon Springs cylinders.

We have pumped dry all dig sites of contaminated water. We have moved this water to the evaporation dam onsite. We have turned off the onsite wastewater treatment plant. The plant has treated more than 2,400 kilolitres of wastewater to date.

We have installed more groundwater wells. We did this to expand the monitoring network. We have not identified contamination to groundwater. We will continue to conduct regular sampling of groundwater. We will keep the community updated with the results.

We are on track to complete the clean-up in the middle of 2023.

We are keen to hear from you. Have your say complete a short survey: https://tinyurl.com/y7vszdcd

For a further update on the site, view our latest progress video: https://tinyurl.com/25jzezta. 

This article appeared in the Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times, 15 March 2023.