Tamworth Regional Council prioritising underground fuel storage investigations after Duri groundwater fuel leak

Tamworth Regional Council's Ross Briggs told the Leader staff had been busy making a "comprehensive list" of underground fuel tanks in the region and working their way through it.

"We've gone around and identified other potential sites that could pose that risk and we've written to them and we are investigating those properties to make sure that if they are not up to standard, that they get up to standard within a reasonable timeframe," he said.

READ ALSO:

Council has about 90 locations marked down, and Mr Briggs said 12 of those are under investigation.

The project update comes as residents in Duri have now spent more than a year without access to groundwater, after a fuel leak was discovered. Mr Briggs said the Duri disaster forced council to "put their skates on" to get through the list.

The village's fuel leak was discovered just months after a three-year long project to patch up the same kind of contamination in Woolomin.

Have your say. Click this link to send a letter to the editor

"We've ... talked to many people in the historical societies, past residents, service stations, those sorts of things and added to our list," Mr Briggs said.

The program was passed on to local councils by the state's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) in late 2019.

He confirmed the project - which could "take years" - could be funded with fees charged for the inspections.

"As we keep rolling we'll see how big of a job it becomes and we can use those fees to put on new officers if we need to," he said.

The EPA is working to remediate the contaminated Duri site.