THREE businesses and the owner of the historic Lalbert Hotel have pleaded guilty to their involvement in illegally dumping debris from the destroyed pub on a nearby farm.
The hotel, its owner Steven John Green, Nev Murray Excavations and Kinkoora Farms Pty Ltd were ordered to pay a total of $8000 after pleading guilty to dumping the waste at a site not licensed to accept industrial material.
Mr Green has owned the Lalbert Hotel for nine years.
The pub, which opened its doors in 1892, was partially blown down by strong winds in an August 2013 storm. On Wednesday, a court heard Mr Green had moved debris from the partially demolished hotel to Craig O’Meara’s property at Wangie, west of Lalbert.
The court heard Mr Green intended to sort the material — which included bricks, broken concrete and scrap metal — for recycling and had engaged Neville Murray’s Kerang earthmoving business to remove the final loads of material and flatten out the hotel site.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) was alerted to the dumping in June 2014 when officers observed the earthmoving business loading debris from the hotel site on Main Street and dumping it at the Frees Road farm.
For more on this story pick up a copy of Monday’s Guardian (May 30, 2016),
