Plans to extend the life of the Lucas Heights waste facility by 13 years have cleared the second last hurdle, with the Department of Planning and Environment recommending approval.
The $95 million proposal involves overtopping the existing landfill area, increasing the height by eight metres.
Classified as a State Significant Development, the application will be determined by the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC).
The department said it had recommended approval, subject to strict conditions, due to Sydney’s population growth.
“Our recommendation to the PAC is to permit an increase in the quantity of waste processed by 275,000 tonnes to a maximum of 850,000 tonnes per year,” said executive director of key sites and industry assessments, Anthea Sargeant.
“The proposal also involves construction and operation of a state-of-the-art resource recovery facility and a new garden organics facility to boost capacity of green waste processing from 55,000 to 80,000 tonnes per year.”
Ms Sargeant said the community raised “a number of legitimate concerns”, including odour, pests and vermin, pollution of local creeks and potential impacts on property value.
“The department took into consideration these issues and has recommended strict conditions as part of the consent,” she said.
“As well, we agreed that turning the area into recreational space following closure of the landfill in 2037 was appropriate.”
The proposal would extend life of the landfill from 2024 to 2037.
SUEZ (formerly SITA), which operates the Lucas Heights Resource Recovery Park said the expansion would inject about $95 million into the economy and provide up to 62 jobs when operational and 100 jobs during construction.
Only nine submissions, including three community objections, were received when the environmental impact statement was exhibited.
One objection was that that there was still no finite end to waste disposal in the shire.
Sutherland Shire Council supported the proposal from the time it was unveiled more than two years ago.
Under a voluntary planning agreement, SUEZ will provide $100 million over 15 years for new and upgraded shire community facilities.
The council will allocate a minimum of 20 per cent to the area west of the Woronora River, in Engadine and south of Loftus.
The Lucas Heights facility provides recycling, resource recovery and solid waste processing and disposal services to councils, commercial and industrial customers, small businesses and households.
It is one of the two main active putrescible waste landfills in Sydney.
The other, at Eastern Creek, is expected to close in mid-2018.
Both landfills receive about the same amount of waste and the remainder of Sydney’s waste is transported by train to the Woodlawn landfill near Goulburn.
The putrescible waste is produced from a wide range of council, commercial and industrial sources.
Under the proposal, Lucas Heights will take an extra 8.3 million tonnes, with the annual intake rising to a maximum of 850,000 tonnes.
At the end of the program in 2037, the site will be rehabilitated and 149 hectares of parkland transferred to the council for public use in 2040.
SUEZ said, without the additional capacity, all of Sydney’s putrescible waste would need to be transported to Woodlawn from 2025.
This would create “a potentially risky situation in that there would be no disposal option for all of Sydney’s putrescible waste if for some reason it was not possible to transfer and dispose of waste to this single long distance landfill”.
The company said expansion at Lucas Heights would allow sufficient time for another major landfill to be identified, planned, approved and developed.
