Business
13 June, 2026
Veolia defends management of Woodlawn landfill
Veolia has defended its management of the Woodlawn landfill after being hit with $48,000 in fines by the NSW Environment Protection Authority for licence breaches.
Veolia has defended its management of the Woodlawn landfill after being hit with $48,000 in fines by the NSW Environment Protection Authority for licence breaches.
As reported by The Southern Wire, the breaches related to uncovered landfill and Veolia’s failure to report landfill gas extraction data, resulting in a $45,000 fine and three $1000 fines.
A Veolia spokesperson said the company set a high standard for the management of the Woodlawn landfill near Tarago, including routine operations to ensure daily cover is applied across the surface.
“Recent attempts to improve management of odour and to keep as many gas wells active as possible saw us change how we applied daily cover in certain areas,” a Veolia spokesperson said.
“Unfortunately, this change inadvertently led to some areas becoming exposed.
“Following discussions with the EPA, we immediately remedied the situation.”
The spokesperson said work was also continuing on odour reduction at the site.
“Over the past four years we have seen a consistent reduction in odour complaints every year,” the spokesperson said.
“In the coming months, we plan to implement further leachate treatment and increase our liquid storage capacity pending approval from the EPA.
“We expect this will support the downward trend in odour complaints,” the spokesperson said.
“In relation to our data reporting, Veolia makes thousands of data points available every month on our website.
“One of the three data points that the EPA questioned was available but through administrative error had been mislabelled.
“The other two were uploaded as soon as we became aware of their absence.”
He said Veolia was committed to transparency and accordingly had updated its website “to ensure the data of most interest to the community, including air monitoring data, is more easily accessible”.
Meanwhile Veolia has rejected claims there will be an increase in the amount of rubbish being transported from Sydney to Goulburn if Veolia’s proposed Waste to Energy facility gets the green light.
Speakers at a recent public forum and public hearing in Goulburn claimed it would increase from two trainloads of rubbish a day to three trainloads of rubbish a day.
Those comments went unchallenged.
A Veolia spokesperson said there would be no increase in the volume waste transported to Tarago if the Energy from Waste facility gets the green light.
“There will be no increase in trains because the amount of waste being delivered will always be within the amount our licence allows us to accept.”
He said if the Energy from Waste facility was approved, some waste would be diverted from the waste currently being transported to the Woodlawn landfill but there would no extra waste added on top of the existing licence.
He said the waste was not being transported to Goulburn but to the Crisp Creek Intermodal Terminal, which had been purpose built.
“This is just past Tarago and truck transport is just a few short kilometres up the road to Woodlawn,” the spokesperson said.
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