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Business convicted for operating without a licence

Richards Sand and Soil, trading as Froma Court No 2, pleaded guilty in the Orange Court in New South Wales. It was accused by the EPA of operating a quarry at Spring Hill without an Environmental Protection Licence (EPL), in breach of the NSW Protection of the Environment Operations Act.
Froma was fined $7,500 for the breach and was ordered to pay $15,000 in legal costs.
The proceedings prosecuted by the EPA related to the company?s actions in 2011 when it extracted approximately 120,000 tonnes of materials from the quarry. The EPA claimed this was more than 90,000 tonnes above the limit they could extract without applying to the EPA for a licence to do so.
The EPA investigation also revealed that Froma did not lodge an EPL application until February 2012 and received a financial benefit of $14,715 in unpaid licence fees as a result of their extraction activities in 2011.
Necessary deterrent
EPA director Gary Whytcross said he hoped it acted as a deterrent for other quarry operations. ?Our licensing system is there to protect the environment and the community from large-scale operations that have the potential to cause harm,? he said. ?The operation was well above the level that requires a licence.?
Whytcross said the company?s actions undermined the licensing process, put the environment and the community at risk and compromised the level playing field in the local industry.
?The EPA took this course of regulatory action because we recognised the potential risk that their activities posed to the environment and the community,? he said.
Richards Sand and Soil closed down their operation at Ash Street in Leewood in July this year and the property is up for sale.
Source: NSW EPA, Central Western Daily

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