By Jeremy Cook
Asbestos is alleged to have been discovered on three separate occasions at a Southern Downs Regional Council waste facility before allegedly contaminating mulch supplied to a primary school oval in Warwick six years ago.
The allegation forms part of a lawsuit launched by the Queensland government against the Southern Downs Regional Council for its alleged supply of asbestos-contaminated topsoil, which was spread across sporting fields at Warwick Central State School in December 2017.
In documents filed in Brisbane District Court in December 2023 and seen by this masthead, the state government claimed the council had acted negligently by allowing green waste mulched at the council-owned Allora Waste Facility to become contaminated with asbestos.
According to the court documents, the state government alleged the council waste facility supplied approximately 100 cubic metres of asbestos-contaminated mulch to a third-party contractor, which was later used to top dress the sporting fields at Warwick Central State School in December 2017.
The council had been creating mulch from green waste disposed of at the waste facility since at least November 2013, the documents said.
The government alleged illegally dumped asbestos had been discovered on four separate occasions at the facility since 2010 and three times before it was found on the school oval.
Discoveries came in 2016, 2011 and 2010 with the government claiming the council failed to take reasonable steps to ensure mulch made available at the waste facility to “members of the public, including soil contractors, either for payment of a fee or for free” hadn’t been contaminated with asbestos.
Court documents said the most recent discovery came in August 2018 when asbestos was allegedly found “in mulch being loaded onto a member of the public’s trailer; in the metal recycling pile, the concrete recycling pile; the wood and timber recycling pile; the mulch pile, and the woodchip pile”.
The government claimed the council had a legal obligation to check for asbestos material which might have been disposed of among the green waste used to create mulch.
The council allegedly supplied approximately 400-500 cubic metres of mulch from its waste facility to El-Paso Farms in the three years prior to December 2017.
The government has also launched legal action against the contractor El-Paso Farms for breaches of contract.
The council is being sued for “negligence”, while the government is seeking damages from both parties for remediation costs to remove and replace contaminated topsoil at the school.
The school had initially paid $3338.50 for the topsoil, though work to remediate the land in 2018 cost the state government $585,845.63.
The documents did not specify whether El-Paso Farms knew about the asbestos contamination at the time of procurement.
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland was first alerted to the discovery of asbestos in the school’s sporting fields by the council in mid-2018.
The court documents noted a statement released by the council in the weeks after the discovery which acknowledged the Allora Waste Facility had been “identified as a source of asbestos-contaminated material which was purchased by an external contractor to make topsoil”.
The statement followed “recent enquiries into low-level contaminated soils located at Collegian Rugby League field and Warwick Central State School”.
Southern Downs Regional Council declined to comment while efforts to contact the third party were unsuccessful.
