RUTHERFORD resident Ramona Cocco says she is "delighted" that action will finally be taken to clean up the contaminated Truegain site.
For more than 20 years, Mrs Cocco has been living with an incessant smell from the site and campaigning for action. She has been an integral part of an ongoing push for the NSW Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action.
"The stench would come into your home and not leave for three or four hours," she said.
"I was getting asthma, chronic headaches and often getting very ill"
The Newcastle Herald revealed on Friday that the EPA was working on plans to remediate the abandoned refinery and that the state government had awarded a $5.6 million contract to ensure PFAS contaminated water on the site was contained.
The site, which recycled a range of materials between the 1990s and its closure in 2016, was made up of two companies. Truegain dealt with contaminated water, while Australian Waste Oil Refineries handled waste oil and processed fuel.
Since 2018, the Newcastle Herald has exposed widespread environmental malpractice at the site, the dumping of oil and liquid waste including the notorious contaminant PFAS into surrounding waterways.
Mrs Cocco said recent developments in the saga were a positive step by the state government, but after 25 years of seepage and health impacts, much of the damage has already been done.
"Every time it rains the contamination leeches out into surrounding waterways and farmland - it's in the crops and the cows through the water."
Too many years of inaction was a result of excessive and poorly constructed legislation, according to Mrs Cocco.
"When something like this happens they need to be able to respond immediately. While people are becoming violently ill and when they are shutting down shops."
Health concerns for new residents in the area are front of mind for Mrs Cocco. She said that young families aren't always aware of Truegain's toxic legacy.
"When the children play in the water they don't realise that it's toxic. There's examples of bronchitis and skin rashes in kids in this area and there's only one explanation," Mrs Cocco said.
"Yes I'm delighted with the development, but in a situation like this nobody wins."
