EPA’S own documents expose years of failure at Mangrove Mountain — the NSW Government must step in.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority’s recent amendment of the Environment Protection Licence (EPL) covering the Mangrove Mountain Landfill does not close the book on the saga. The EPA’s latest notice reinforces serious and unresolved questions about how the site was regulated over many years, and what responsibility the State Government must now accept.
On 6 November 2025, the EPA issued a formal notice varying the EPL. The notice records that in Verde Terra Pty Ltd v Central Coast Council and EPA (No 9) [2022] NSWLEC 29, the Land and Environment Court found that certain variations to the licence were invalid because there was no development consent for the works and activities the subject of those variations.
Those amendments were not one-off errors. The EPA’s 2025 notice confirms invalid variations were made to the licence on 13 May 2009, 29 June 2010, 9 July 2010, 30 August 2010 and 7 November 2011. This was not a single administrative slip up by the EPA, it was a pattern spanning consecutive years.
The conditions that have now been removed were not trivial. They included conditions relating to landfill cell construction, sediment and erosion controls, installation of leachate pond lining, installation of leachate barriers and collection systems, and construction quality assurance reporting.
Up to 85% of the fill mound did not have an engineered leachate barrier and up to 3 million litres of leachate may be escaping annually into the Central Coast’s drinking water catchment and local aquifer.
CEN is calling upon the NSW Government to:
– publicly acknowledge the significance of the EPA’s 2025 notice and the Court findings it records
– commission an independent review or inquiry into the administration of EPL 11395 over the relevant period
– hold a public meeting to explain what safeguards are now in place
– confirm that the EPA is committed to transparent monitoring, investigation and, where necessary, remediation to protect the catchment and downstream water users.
Community Environment Network
