Avian influenza-affected birds, eggs and soil from an outbreak zone at Euroa are being disposed of more than 100 kilometres to the north-east at Agriculture Victoria’s Rutherglen Research Facility.
Residents in the area — which is currently bird-flu free — have been scathing of the decision to move the material and say there has been a lack of communication from the department.
Marc Egan farms in Chiltern, which neighbours Rutherglen, and said he had concerns about what it could mean for local wildlife.
“If we were to have an outbreak here, it’s obviously going to affect any poultry farmers in the area,” he said.
“Further to that, we have some endangered birds that are in our region.”
Hundreds of thousands of infected birds have been destroyed as a result of the H7N8 strain, which was detected at four Kinross Farms properties at Euroa in February.
Indigo Shire Mayor Sophie Price said locals had many questions around why the contaminated material was being moved from the restricted area near Euroa.
“It still does seem bizarre to me, and the community,”
she said.
“Agriculture Victoria need[s] to clear that up and give us a really clear understanding of why they might bring contaminated material to a site that doesn’t currently have that outbreak.”
Many birds have been destroyed since the outbreak began. (ABC Great Southern: Sophie Johnson)
Cr Price said the council found out about the issue at the same time residents did and there had been a “void” of information in the community.
Indigo Shire CEO Trevor Ierino posted a statement on the council’s Facebook page on Monday, after community members brought the situation to the shire’s attention.
Mr Ierino has since met with the CEO of Agriculture Victoria to communicate locals’ fears.
‘Minimal risk’ to community
Victoria’s acting chief veterinary officer Cameron Bell told the ABC’s Victorian Country Hour the trucks transporting waste material were “all fully sealed and decontaminated before they leave Euroa to ensure that there’s minimal risk to the environment”.
“It’s a tightly controlled process, and we’re using deep burial, which is compliant with nationally agreed approaches to disposing these types of waste materials,” Dr Bell said.
“It’s impossible to say with anything that there’s zero risk, but we’re certainly confident that it is very, very low risk.”
Agriculture Victoria says contaminated eggs and dead birds could not be disposed of at Euroa. (ABC Great Southern: Georgia Hargreaves)
The veterinarian said the contaminated material had to be moved elsewhere for burial due to shallow groundwater at the affected properties.
Dr Bell said the department’s exclusion zone was working, and there had been no further bird flu detections outside of the restricted zone, which extended 5km beyond the affected properties.
“We have completed the humane and safe depopulation of those farms, and we’re now well into the phase of removing materials such as eggs, litter, which is the combination of manure and nesting materials, and feed off those farms,” he said.
However, Mr Egan said while he was aware that shallow groundwater at Euroa meant the waste could not be dumped there, another site within the exclusion zone should have been considered.
“Simple risk management says [to not] take a contaminated substance away from the source of contamination,” he said.
“It’s absolutely crazy to be transporting it to another area and increasing the risk.”
The Environment Protection Authority said Agriculture Victoria was using EPA-approved, sealed transport.
Rutherglen residents say there has been a lack of communication from Agriculture Victoria. (ABC Goulburn Murray)
Cr Price said Agriculture Victoria needed to improve their communication to address community concerns in Indigo Shire.
“It’s their role to make sure the Rutherglen community has confidence in what’s happening and is not concerned about those practices,” she said.
“We don’t want to do the messaging on their behalf — they need to have really clear messaging themselves.”
