The owners of a housing estate in Sydney's west have agreed to get the site tested for a potential leak of toxic chemicals more than three years after the possible contamination risk to thousands of residents was discovered.
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Since 2015, Ford Motoring Company has suspected chemicals could have spread from a former waste dump at its old factory to the residential precinct at Centenary Park in Homebush West.
But the Herald revealed last week that the extent of any contamination from the former landfill site remains unknown.
That is because Ford and the developer, Telmet Ventures, have been locked in a dispute over Ford's access to test for the presence of any chemicals on the site.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority organised a meeting with the owners corporation and Ford last week.
The authority said in a statement that the meeting had broken the "deadlock" between the two parties and the motoring company had been granted access to the site.
“After three years of delay, the owners corporation of the Centenary Park development in Courallie Avenue has agreed Ford can come onto their property to test for potential contamination," Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton said.
“Once the testing is completed, local residents will have some certainty and further action – if needed – can be taken,” she said.
Acting EPA chairman and chief executive Mark Gifford said: “Under the ‘polluter pays’ principle, Ford is required to undertake the testing because the concern is over potential contamination from its property to the neighbouring site.
“The investigation will commence after the scope of the investigation has been agreed by the owners corporation and the EPA, and after an access deed has been finalised between Ford and the owners corporation. This may take up to six weeks,” he said.
Ford Australia spokesman Martin Gunsberg said that "after a productive meeting with the EPA, a pathway to access has been laid out and agreed by the parties".
A spokesman for the Centenary Park owners corporation declined to comment. The estate is home to about 2500 residents.
Strathfield MP Jodi McKay said the agreement for the tests to take place was "a positive step" that recognised the disagreement over access had "gone on for too long".
"But it just seems like another unnecessary delay when it's obvious the site needs to be tested as a matter of urgency."
Ms Upton responded that the proper process must be followed.
The EPA last month issued the estate's owners' corporation with a draft preliminary investigation order directing them to get the site tested.
That was because investigations had detected elevated levels of ammonia in groundwater at the old landfill, the authority said.
The EPA said in a statement last week that it needed to investigate "whether groundwater from the landfill is moving towards the residential land and whether any contamination is present".
"Based on available information the risk to residents is low."
