News that serial internation polluter the Huntsman Group are closing down their stench-producing Brooklyn plant at the end of the year, has been met with mixed feelings. Around 300 jobs will be lost in a major blow to unemployment in the west, an area where unemployment is already well above the national average. Concern on jobs is balanced by the positives that a major polluter and ageing infrastucture and associated risk of catasrophe will disappear.

Yarraville’s “On the Nose” group have also reported a small but imortant victory, as reported in “The Star”

Abattoir penalty ‘victory’
By Charlene Gatt
8th September 2009

YARRAVILLE’S On the Nose Group has claimed a minor victory after the former director of a Brooklyn abattoir and meat processing company was fined $80,000.

Former Tasman Group Services director Pierre Gilbert Cabral has pleaded guilty to leaving waste water containing animal effluent in the company’s stormwater drains, where it could have drained into, and polluted, Stony Creek in November 2006.

No conviction was recorded.

In a hearing earlier this year, the Tasman Group was ordered to pay $200,000 for environmental projects, plus $30,000 in costs to the EPA for similar charges. The EPA took court action after the company failed to comply with a notice.

“EPA can and will prosecute such individuals if its investigations find that an offence has occurred, and this case shows that they may face a substantial financial cost as a result,” EPA spokesman Bruce Dawson said.

Swift Australia bought out the Tasman Group in March 2008.

The fine comes shortly after residents kicked up a stink because a fire at meat processing company Australian Tallow caused an outbreak of foul smells in Brooklyn and Altona North.

Yarraville’s On the Nose Group has previously said fines against offending Brooklyn companies were few and far between.

But at a Brooklyn Community Reference Group meeting earlier this year, the group agreed that the EPA should stop focusing on fines and take an “enforceable undertakings” approach, where offending companies would have a time-line to fix a problem area.

Months on from the decision, On the Nose spokesperson Bruce Light is concerned the new resolution is not making any headway.

“We want to know what enforceable undertakings have been issued,” he said. “The piles of dust have just grown higher, the companies are stinking more and more. We’re fed up. We’ve had a gutful of it.”

The Brooklyn reference group will meet on 16 September to discuss dust issues in the area, and will have a full meeting on 18 November.

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