Asbestos has been found in another Wollongong City Council soil mound put in place to curb illegal dumping.
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The latest discovery - on Wyllie Road at Kembla Grange - came less than three weeks after the organisation admitted it unwittingly dumped construction waste piles riddled with asbestos along the Old Princes Highway between Sublime Point and Waterfall.
The Wyllie Road barrier, built in early April, has been found to contain low levels of bonded asbestos.
In a statement, general manager David Farmer said council had barricaded the latest site, erected warning signs and reported the find to the Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
‘‘Council wants to assure the community that the risk to public health, and council staff, is and remains low,’’ Mr Farmer said.
"As council did with the Old Princes Highway barriers, we are engaging a specialist contractor to develop an Asbestos Removal Scope of Works for the site and will arrange for the removal of the soil in a safe and appropriate manner. This is an area that has a long history of illegal dumping of a wide range of materials, including bonded asbestos. We are looking into the cause of the contamination of the barriers."
Tests on barriers at Mount Keira, Mount Kembla and Berkeley - which date back to 2012 - detected no asbestos, Mr Farmer said.
"Following council's discovery that the initiative to place soil barriers along the side of the road in illegal dumping hotspots had been poorly executed - and had resulted in low levels of bonded asbestos contamination in the mounds - council has moved to check for similar sites in the city where this initiative had been used."
Meanwhile, specialist contractors late last week finished removing the 10 piles of construction waste scattered along the Old Princes Highway and issued clearance certificates.
