Penrith City Council has recently agreed to half a million dollars worth of asbestos remediation work across St Clair and St Marys, following the discovery of asbestos in the Luke’s Lane, Saunders Park and Cook and Banks Fields area in 2019.
The asbestos-contaminated material was discovered after particularly heavy rainfall and flooding at the site.
At the time of discovery, the asbestos-contaminated land had all ground surface asbestos material removed, in addition to air monitoring to ensure there was no risk to the community through airborne asbestos.
Brian Steffen, Council’s Director of City Services explained that “as soon as the asbestos was discovered there it was taped off, no access and a low geo-fabric layer was put over the site.”
“It has been fenced off until we could design the remediation plan and go out to tender.
“We did do letterbox drops to the residents in the area and signage along the fences so people knew what was happening there.”
“What we have found when this has happened [is that] it has been old fibro, sometimes it’s soil containment in the soil as well as fibro, but when they are buried like this it is usually fibro,” he said.
Total asbestos remediation is currently being undertaken at the site, as the council works with Telstra and Sydney Water, who also have infrastructure across the site.
The council is also undertaking close to $200,000 worth of further asbestos remediation work on a strategic parcel of land in St Marys, with a view to selling the site.