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An unemployed former panel beater who used his semi-rural home in Melbourne’s north-east as a giant illegal industrial waste dump has copped a record environmental crime fine, and authorities are vowing to now pursue the trucking companies who dumped loads on his property.
Joseph Chetcuti used his Diamond Creek land as a black-market tip for trucks to deposit truckloads of waste made up of soil and construction and demolition rubble, some of which was laced with asbestos.
He ignored orders to cease accepting the industrial materials and to clean up his property for several weeks. Meanwhile, his home remains covered in a mountain of toxic waste more than a year after the clean-up orders were issued.
The conviction and $60,000 penalty handed down in court on Tuesday is believed to be the largest fine issued to an individual for an environmental crime under Victoria’s Environment Protection Act.
It follows an investigation by the EPA and the Nillumbik Shire Council, which hired private detectives to track tipper trucks as they moved from industrial and construction sites across Melbourne to empty their loads of waste.
The investigation was launched after EPA officers attended a fire that involved construction and demolition waste at Chetcuti’s property on May 2 last year.
Chetcuti had to be restrained by police officers during that incident as he yelled aggressively at EPA officers, insisting the illegal fire was a controlled burn. Country Fire Authority officers used one million litres of water to extinguish the fire and later told the EPA they were concerned about polluted run-off.
Environment Protection Authority chief executive Joss Crawford said the community had been outraged by Chetcuti’s actions.
“This was a brazen and highly organised criminal waste-dumping operation conducted on an industrial scale,” Crawford said. “Chetcuti and those who brought their illegal waste to the site showed a blatant disregard for the community and the environment, causing significant harm and eroding public trust.”
Crawford vowed the authority would also pursue the trucking businesses that dumped their loads on his land, in what is believed to have been a commercial arrangement to avoid paying Victoria’s landfill levy, which has been significantly increased in recent years.
One tipper truck driver, speaking anonymously to avoid incriminating himself, previously told this masthead he had paid Chetcuti $100 cash to dump a single load of cleanfill soil.
“More investigations are ongoing involving other properties, and our investigations have identified multiple trucking companies who we believe used Chetcuti’s site as a dumping ground to avoid the cost of lawful disposal,” Crawford said.
Chetcuti must also pay to clean up the Black Gully Road property, even if he sells it. The EPA estimates the clean-up bill will exceed $1 million. Supreme Court documents reveal that Chetcuti defaulted on a $2.2 million bank loan, using his home as equity, in May. The property was put on the market earlier this year but failed to sell.
Magistrate Natalie Burnett sentenced Chetcuti in the Heidelberg Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, finding that his moral culpability was high and that the impact of his offending on his neighbours was severe.
“The environmental action notice had already been served before the offences were committed,” Burnett said.
“The offender was on notice that the conduct was unlawful and that he was required to comply with the notice. His failure to do so and defiance of the environmental action notice aggravate the offending.”
Chetcuti’s guilty plea spared him a larger fine of $75,000, Burnett said, though she noted his “lengthy criminal history” and previous breaches of court orders, indicating a disregard for the law.
She ordered he pay $12,000 in court costs.
Chetcuti had claimed through his lawyer that a form of undiagnosed dyslexia prevented him from fully understanding the environmental action notice. He also claimed the waste pile, which was measured at 11.6 metres high and 30 metres wide, was landscaping intended to improve his property.
Burnett rejected these claims, and said Chetcuti’s ongoing failure to clean up the site posed an ongoing environmental risk.
She said the gravity of the offending was higher than many other illegal dumping cases because it directly affected Chetcuti’s neighbours.
Next-door neighbour Ivan Carter previously told the court his property had been officially devalued by 40 per cent, and said in a victim impact statement that he and his wife’s sense of safety and enjoyment in their own home had been destroyed.
Chetcuti’s industrial dumping also extended to a property directly over the road from his Diamond Creek home, which has been the subject of a separate investigation involving his son, Jayden Chetcuti.
Authorities are contending with a spate of illegal dumping operations on Melbourne’s fringes.
Earlier this month, the EPA and the City of Hume shut down a large illegal waste dumping and burning site on a rural property in Wildwood, just outside Sunbury. The stockpiles of industrial waste also included asbestos fragments, which are potentially deadly when inhaled. Multiple tipper trucks were seen depositing loads of soil on site before the operation was shut down.
The Victorian government has committed $21.5 million to an illegal dumping taskforce to tackle the worsening problem.
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