Palerang council will decide on the future of Braidwood’s Saleyards and truck washout facility Thursday evening's at the monthly meeting in Bungendore.
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Following compliance issues the truck wash was closed earlier this year and reopened with conditions, and council staff have been investigating ways to keep the facility open.
A report seeking a decision on the way forward for the management of effluent /sludge generated by the Braidwood Saleyard and Truckwash enterprises is summarised below.
The report recommends that Council:
1. proceed with the engagement of NSW Public Works for the development of a Waste Management Plan in satisfaction of the conditions for the interim trade waste approval for the saleyard and truckwash out facilities with $14,850 of the engagement to be funded from the Saleyard reserve and the residual from revenue;
2. determine the preferred future for the saleyards and truckwash enterprises beyond the expiration of the 4 August 2014 interim approval deadline.
At the saleyard committee meeting of 20 March, much was made of the effluent/sludge handling methodologies employed by other nearby saleyard operations – most notably those at both Moss Vale and Cooma. Understandably, questions were asked as to why a smaller facility such as Braidwood should be having such approval issues when others apparently were not. A field visit was made to both centres on 27 March.
At the Saleyard Committee meeting of 20 March, interest was expressed about alternate methods of effluent/sludge disposal; ones that did not necessarily require the treatment services of the Braidwood STP and hence considerations centred around any trade waste approvals.
“A meeting with a representative from EPA was held on site on 10 April 2014 at which time a number of options were discussed. EPA wrote to Council on 9 May 2014 summarising the outcomes of these discussions.
“In general terms, EPA provided advice against the following headings: A) Potential use of the emergency storage pond at the STP as an aerobic digester; B) Effluent reuse by irrigation as an option; C) Biosolids; D) Disposal of Biosolids at a waste facility.
The report says the EPAs 4th August deadline “is fast approaching and a position will need to be determined soon if Council is of a mind to continue to operate both enterprises beyond this date. To do so though will require confronting the matter of funding – this being the case whatever model of waste handling is ultimately adopted. Clearly it is not possible to properly estimate the likely cost of every permutation of consultancy or capital works that may be required in developing the ultimate or preferred solution. Suffice to say though that we have enough information to reasonably expect these to be somewhere in the range of $300,000 to $600,000. We also know that the magnitude of these costs are beyond the internal reserve capacity of the Saleyard portfolio, just as they are almost certainly outside of the propensity of the users of these facilities to pay for in the form of much higher future charges.”
“A requirement exists to develop a Waste Management Plan under the current NoW interim approval and a fee proposal (based on the Public Works concept model) of $20,100 is in hand for this purpose.”
“Put bluntly, the scale of any solution to these issues is outside the internal financial capacity of the saleyard enterprise. If it is Council’s will to pursue a long term solution for both the saleyard and truck washout, funds of the order of $600,000 will be required. Assuming that there is no prospect of any higher governmental financial assistance, the only real prospect of funding these works is through loan funds.
The draft 2014-15 operational plan currently contains a provision for this amount funded from loan sources. The debt servicing burden however is not contained in these budget papers since the first repayment (estimated at around $47,000 pa) does not effectively come into play until the 2015-16 and subsequent years.
Repayments of this order are outside the expected propensity of the saleyard and truckwash users to pay.
As at 1 July 2013, the saleyard capital reserve stood at $46,078. Throughout the year Council has voted some $64,346 for various works associated with the saleyards and truckwash. With an estimated 13/14 income for the reserve of ($33,118) a potential funding source of around $14,850 is expected to now exist. Given the outstanding commitment for the development of a Waste Management Plan and its quoted cost of $20,100, these funds could now be voted for this purpose. The residual of $5,250 would however not be covered and would effectively be a negative impact on the current budget.”