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While Victoria baked through its hottest day on record on January 27, Jayden Chetcuti allegedly got to work raising the temperature even higher in the outer Melbourne suburb of Wollert.
As the mercury tipped past 45 degrees in the early afternoon, the 26-year-old concrete pumper is alleged to have lit a bonfire built from piles of demolition refuse in a hidden corner of a leased farm, despite a total fire ban being in place.
It soon became a grass fire in the catastrophic conditions. It took more than 20 Country Fire Authority and Fire Rescue Victoria vehicles and a helicopter to contain the blaze, which was fanned by fierce northerly winds blowing in the direction of a housing estate several hundred metres south.
This was not the first time firefighters had been forced to battle a fire at the Wollert property, 40 kilometres north of central Melbourne.
Chetcuti is currently being investigated by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for the alleged “unlawful deposit and burning of industrial waste”, and of failing to comply with the regulator’s direction to cease burning and remediate the site.
His father, Joseph Chetcuti, also faces EPA charges for unlawfully accepting industrial waste without a permit at multiple sites in Diamond Creek, on Melbourne’s north-eastern fringe, and failing to comply with a notice “requiring him to cease accepting, classify and clean up the wastes”.
Waste industry sources speaking anonymously told The Age the father and son had been running a prolific black market operation disposing of demolition waste at cut-price rates, mostly for small operators who want to avoid paying Victoria’s metropolitan landfill levy, which increased from $129 to $170 a tonne last year.
One source said small operators were attracted to the business because of the high and growing cost of legally disposing of construction waste and soil at legitimate landfill sites.
“It’s been like six years in a row, every year the EPA is putting up the levy for rubbish … prices have gone up that much to take rubbish to the landfill, and people, of course they have to find shortcuts because people don’t have much money to afford all that.”
The industry source said the father and son were well known in the northern suburban building and waste sectors, and had begun their operation on a Diamond Creek property they owned, initially being visited by a handful of tipper trucks a day depositing soil, but in time also taking building waste and ramping the operation up to “80, 90, 100 trucks a day”.
The Diamond Creek operation was shut down in September last year, and Joseph Chetcuti was charged with accepting construction waste and soil without a permit and failing to comply with a notice to cease accepting, classify and clean up the waste.
But the Chetcutis were not done with their waste disposal operation. The following month, Jayden Chetcuti leased the Wollert property.
A real estate listing advertised the 53-hectare site as an “ideal earth dump station”.
Satellite imagery indicates he worked quickly to build an industrial-scale disposal site in the north-western corner, which lies beyond the view of passing traffic. By mid-December, it had been transformed from a rocky field to a dump site covered in piles of building waste and mounds of soil.
The CFA attended the property multiple times before police eventually accompanied firefighters on January 27, when Jayden Chetcuti was arrested and taken away to be interviewed. He was later released.
In a chain of WhatsApp group messages, seen by The Age, Chetcuti had spruiked the site in Wollert earlier that month.
“Hey lads I have a site to tip rubbish call me,” one reads.
“How much per tone [sic]”, one member of the group asks. Photos also show tipper trucks depositing demolition rubble at the site.
A CFA source, speaking anonymously because they are not authorised to speak, said volunteer firefighters had visited the Wollert site several times over summer and that Chetcuti was cavalier about the situation.
“He cracked a joke, ‘Next time I’ll bring the marshmallows’.”
“It’s been difficult. Summerhill Road has burnt out the crew like we’ve never been burnt out before. He’s also creating a significant risk to the rest of the Wollert area because our appliances are tied up there. If something else was to happen we are already pulling resources to this job,” they said.
A nearby resident said fires sometimes started in the middle of the night and would smoulder for days. He temporarily moved his family out of the area because of the dust and smoke that invaded the house during the bonfires, and over fears a fire may one day burn out of control.
At times, the access road into the property was as busy as a commercial tip, the resident said.
“There’s trucks going in and out all day long. Sometimes there’s one every 10 minutes, sometimes there’s one every two hours, but it’s continuous.”
Northern Metropolitan Liberal MP Evan Mulholland raised the issue in state parliament after meeting with CFA volunteers in Wollert in February.
“I was shocked to learn of this occurring and that it has even taken place during total fire bans, risking devastating consequences for local communities,” Mulholland said.
The property is also significant because it is bound on all sides by heritage-listed dry stone walls, one of which has been damaged, and is covered by the Melbourne Strategic Assessment Program, meaning it contains habitat for critically endangered species.
A high-pressure underground gas pipeline between Victoria and NSW, which is critical to Melbourne’s gas supply, also runs through the site.
It is understood the pipeline’s owner, APA, has raised concerns with the CFA about the potential risk to the pipeline from an out-of-control grass fire.
When contacted by The Age, Jayden Chetcuti confirmed he had leased the property within the past six months, but denied he had been burning industrial waste, insisting the demolition material was green waste.
“People might call it industrial waste or classify it as that but not until the right authorities have viewed it,” Chetcuti said.
“I mean, it’s all trees and stuff that would have been known as green waste as well as hardwood timber. I wouldn’t call that industrial waste because that was once a tree too, that has been milled down into certain shapes or measurements and used for house frames or structural work.”
Chetcuti said he was complying with the EPA’s directions.
He also said he had removed part of a protected dry-stone wall because it was the only way to access the property.
The EPA said the Wollert site was the subject of an ongoing investigation, so the regulator was limited in what it could say publicly.
“EPA has inspected and issued a direction and remedial notice to regulate the unlawful deposit and burning of industrial waste at 280 Summerhill Road, Wollert,” it said.
“An investigation is ongoing to identify potential offences related to the unlawful deposit and burning of industrial waste as well as non-compliance with the direction and remedial notice.”
Victoria Police said it was also investigating “the circumstances surrounding an allegedly suspicious grassfire in Wollert” on January 27, in which a 26-year-old man was arrested and interviewed before being released.
Whittlesea City Council said it was aware of community concerns and was investigating activity at the site.
“Council has been investigating activities on the site and officers have attended on numerous occasions as part of ongoing monitoring and investigations,” it said.
Joseph Chetcuti is scheduled to face court in May for a guilty plea.
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Adam Carey is senior city reporter (suburban). He has held previous roles including education editor, state political correspondent and transport reporter. He joined The Age in 2007.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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