By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
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DANDENONG’S state MPs are being called on to stand up against toxic waste in Lyndhurst ahead of an anticipated parliamentary vote on the issue this week.
Greens upper house MP Colleen Hartland said she would move a revocation order against a C125 planning amendment to rezone SITA’s landfill site in Abbotts Road from farmland to industrial 1.
The amendment would pave the way for a soil treatment plant for grade A waste — the most toxic category of waste, which includes arsenic and heavy metals.
The plant, which has Environment Protection Authority approval, would be within a kilometre of housing estates in Lynbrook and a few hundred metres from workplaces in Dandenong South.
Ms Hartland said the potential health dangers could amount to ‘‘another Brookland Greens’’ — the Cranbourne housing estate evacuated because of leaking methane from a nearby abandoned landfill in 2008.
Labor planning spokesman Brian Tee said his party didn’t support grade A waste at the site but would not support the revocation order.
‘‘The community is entitled to be worried — this is the worst of the worst kind of waste. It’s the permit [for the soil treatment plant] which we have an issue with, and that’s entirely up to the planning minister [Matthew Guy]. We don’t have a say in it.
‘‘We have no opposition to the rezoning: the land should be industrial. To call it farming land is a misnomer.’’
A spokeswoman for Lyndhurst MP Tim Holding said Mr Holding supported the party’s position.
Liberal south-east metropolitan MP Inga Peulich, who raised health concerns about the site while in opposition, supported the rezoning.
‘‘Revocation of a planning amendment is intended for the exceptional situations where improper processes have been followed, where no consultation has occurred or where there may be impropriety. This is not the case in this circumstance.’’
