Zoya Investments Pty Ltd convicted of offence for failing to comply with a management order issued by the EPA relating to significantly contaminated service station site
Service station owner Zoya Investments Pty Ltd (Zoya Investments) was prosecuted by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and pleaded guilty to an offence of failing to comply with a management order between September 2020 and September 2021.
Zoya Investments is the owner of a service station site located at 68 Craigie Ave, Kanwal. The site has been declared significantly contaminated since 2018 due to petrol contamination in the soil and groundwater at the site.
The EPA issued a management order to Zoya Investments that required it to take specific steps to investigate and remediate the contamination at the site.
One of the required steps was that Zoya Investments engage a duly qualified person to immediately rectify any operational issues identified in an equipment integrity test report that had been previously provided to the EPA. The report identified, amongst other things, the following:
- three of four underground petrol storage tanks had failed equipment integrity testing and required further investigation and possible rectification, and
- a leak in the fuel line from one of the underground storage tanks to the above ground bowser required immediate action and rectification.
Zoya Investments was required to immediately fix these issues and provide a written report to the EPA detailing the works. Zoya Investments failed to comply with that requirement for approximately a year and as a result, petrol continued to be at risk of contaminating the site during this period.
On 16 December 2022, the Land and Environment Court convicted and sentenced Zoya Investments for the offence it committed. The Court ordered that Zoya Investments:
– pay a fine of $180,000 plus $140,000 in daily penalty ($320,000 in total),
– pay a moiety of 50% of the fine to the EPA;
– pay EPA’s professional costs; and
– cause this notice to be published.
ACAPMA. Published at the request of Zoya Investments Pty Ltd.
