Linc Energy's former CEO ordered to clean up Hopeland site
An environmental protection order has been issued against Linc Energy’s former chief executive Peter Bond.
It is the first time the Queensland government’s new chain-of-responsibility laws have been put into use and comes after creditors on Monday unanimously voted to place Linc into liquidation.
The state’s environment department issued the EPO on Wednesday night to ensure environmental obligations were met at Linc’s site at Hopeland, north-west of Brisbane. It requires that Bond take steps to decommission most of the site’s dams and to rehabilitate contaminated soils. Queensland bans underground coal gasification over environmental risk
Linc Energy’s dams have been a source of odour to the surrounding community, the department said.
The environment minister, Steven Miles, said the chain-of-responsibility laws would ensure Linc’s trial underground coal gasification plant site was rehabilitated. “Decommissioning the dams is a crucial part of the long-term strategy regarding odour sources and is a necessary rehabilitation step,” he said.
Linc went into voluntary administration in April after it was committed to stand trial, accused of wilfully and unlawfully causing serious environmental harm at the Hopeland site.
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