Coliban Water will appeal its new Kyneton Water Reclamation Plant (WRP) licence at Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, it announced on December 13.
Managing Director Damian Wells said they believe it is in the best interest of the customers to exercise the right to appeal at VCAT.
This follows the technical and legal assessment of the new operating licence received from the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) last week, and Coliban’s ability to comply with these conditions, he said.
“We submitted our licence amendment application in May 2022 where we are proposing to ‘lock-in’ new environmental performance standards consistent with our new environment and sustainability policy.
“We are long-run custodians of the Campaspe River water cycle and we stand behind the environmental credentials of our recent work at Kyneton where we acknowledged historical non-compliance issues. “
Coliban Water said it has, together with its recycled water partners, invested more than $20 million at the site over the past three years, to deliver a dramatic step-change in environmental performance.
Coliban Water is seeking further ecological and scientific evidence and justification from the EPA to support their decisions in relation to the new operating licence conditions, it said.
“In what should be a 42-day process, the decision took in excess of 500 days which has been extremely disappointing”, Mr Wells said.
“Our licence amendment application contained an evidence-based environmental risk assessment and supporting documentation that demonstrated our proposal would not create an unacceptable environmental risk to the Campaspe River.”
