Tarago should not be forced to carry the burden of Sydney's waste problems or be exposed to "forever chemicals" from a proposed incinerator, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
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Tarago Public School P&C vice-president, Belinda Maher, was one of 29 speakers at the state's Select Committee Inquiry into Proposed Waste to Energy Facilities in Goulburn on Thursday, May 14.
The committee, chaired by The Nationals MLC, Nichole Overall, is examining the performance of technologies proposed for Veolia's $600 million advanced recovery centre near Tarago and a similar facility at Parkes. It is also scrutinising health, environmental and agricultural impacts, emission monitoring and alternatives, among other aspects.
Ms Maher told the inquiry that Veolia's proposal made it "impossible" to protect children's health, wellbeing and safety.
"The preschool relies entirely on tank water," she said.
"While we have filters, they cannot eliminate the forever chemicals that will surely emit from this incinerator and settle on our preschool roof, farmland and local communities.
"...When, toxic emissions blanket our playground, what happens when our children engage in play? They will be chronically, unknowingly exposed to these particles. Are we willing to gamble the developing bodies of our children on the corporate promise of 'acceptable emissions'?"
Ms Maher questioned what the future looked like "if the adults in the room failed to protect the very air children breathed and the water they drank."
Veolia has stated that the technology won't harm human, animal or environmental health.
The inquiry received 1049 public submissions, the majority opposed to the facilities.
All Goulburn public forum speakers objected to Veolia's plan to process 380,000 tonnes of Sydney's red bin waste annually for 30 years at the Woodlawn eco-precinct. Three trains a week would transport it to the nearby Crisps Creek intermodal.
Ian Anderson represented the Citizens Climate Lobby and a Goulburn cross party working group on Veolia's 'advanced energy recovery centre.' He told the forum that burning waste was "a lazy solution."
"The proposer suggests 99.99 per cent of dioxins, PFAS, heavy metals and forever chemicals will be destroyed or captured in their system," he said.
"0.01pc of the proposed tonnage not captured equates to a minimum 38 tonnes of forever chemicals escaping into the atmosphere every years, more than 10kg a day, every day for 30 years."
Cr Christopher O'Mahony said that according to UK statistics, burning plastics produced 175 times more carbon dioxide than burying it in landfill.
"What an own goal for any attempt to achieve net zero," he said.
"For this reason, among others, many UK councils are refusing to to approve new incineration facilities."
A Veolia spokesperson said while the company understood community concerns about chemicals, available evidence showed modern energy from waste facilities were safe, whether they operate in major cities or agricultural regions.
"We expect the same level of scrutiny applied to energy from waste proposals is also directed to claims made by opponents," he said.
"This is especially true where the claimed 'risks' have not manifested in locations where best practice energy from waste plants operate."
'Repeated EPA breaches'
Numerous speakers said they didn't trust Veolia to safely operate the facility. Tarago resident, Paige Davis, said the company's "long history of noncompliance" must be uppermost in any assessment.
She outlined a July, 2024 $30,000 EPA fine for "preventable failures in leachate management," a February, 2025 fine and clean-up notice for allowing leachate dams to exceed limits, and an April, 2026 prevention notice over landfill gas capture and leachate management breakdowns that triggered scores of odour complaints. Ms Davis said these were "only the most recent breaches."
"A company that cannot consistently operate an existing waste facility within licence conditions cannot credibly be entrusted with a toxic waste incinerator that depends on zero tolerance for failure," she said.
"If this government approves Veolia's incinerator in the face of this evidence, it will not be because the risks were unknown, it will be because they were ignored."
Veolia defended its community consultation and said it had always responded rapidly to EPA action.
However, retired engineer, Kevin Woods, argued the incinerator was "short-sighted and would create long-lasting risks".
"It's like putting lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig," he said.
"If incineration is so safe, why not put it closer to where the waste is produced?"
Communities Against The Tarago Incinerator president, James Innes, said there was no "undo button" once farming regions were associated with industrial waste processing.
"Regional communities should not quietly become the place where metropolitan problems are burnt away from sight," he said.
"The bush already carries much of the burden for the nation. We carry the transmission lines, the mines, the freight routes, the quarries, and increasingly the waste infrastructure. Yet what we produce from our land is food, water stewardship, biodiversity, and community."
'Community will keep fighting'
Goulburn-Mulwaree Cross-Party Working Group on Waste Incinerators chair and Anglican rector, The Reverend Paul Davey, told the forum that Veolia had "no social licence" to build the facility.
"Our community stands united against waste incineration here or anywhere. It is lazy government policy that doesn't deal with the root causes of Sydney's waste problem," he said.
"We are aghast that Sydney should propose to ban it themselves but allow it here...The committee and government ought to plan for other ways to deal with the rubbish because our community will keep fighting."
Ms Overall said she was buoyed by the public turnout. She said community uncertainty about potential long-term pollution risks had been aired at Parkes and Goulburn sittings.
"The technology being proposed doesn't exist on the eastern seaboard. There are examples in Western Australia but from the proponent's perspective, it's reliant on international facilities for safety standards," she said.
Veolia says these international standards are "appropriate" for NSW.
Ms Overall said the committee would decide whether another inquiry was warranted and if further witnesses were required.
A report with findings and recommendations will be given to the state government, but there is no timeline at this stage.
"The inquiry's primary is to give the community the opportunity to know they are very much being heard," she said.
"I am looking at it very closely...I very much hope that whatever the recommendations are, the NSW government takes them seriously and at the very least listens to these communities."
