Hazelwood mine owner should pay: residents

Latrobe Valley residents will make the two-hour trip to Melbourne to present Hazelwood mine owners with an $18 million invoice.

Hazelwood open cut coal mine.

Coal is a problem for poverty reduction, report finds. (AAP) Source: COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY

Community members affected by the Hazelwood mine fire will present an $18 million invoice to the owners of the mine at its Melbourne headquarters.

More than 100 people are expected to make the two-hour journey from the Latrobe Valley on Thursday to GDF Suez offices in Melbourne's CBD.

"The financial costs of the Hazelwood mine fire are in excess of $100 million. We demand that GDF Suez demonstrate some social responsibility and pay this small portion of these massive costs," Voices of the Valley president Wendy Farmer said in a statement.

Ms Farmer will be joined by United Firefighters Union secretary Peter Marshall, residents and Country Fire Authority volunteers.

Last week, GDF Suez refused to foot the CFA's $18 million bill for extinguishing the fire.

A GDF Suez spokesperson said it was a surprise to receive the invoice because the company understood the cost was covered by the millions of dollars it had paid in its fire service levy over many years.

The state government has flagged potential legal action if GDF Suez refuses to pay.

The fire blanketed Morwell in toxic smoke and ash for 45 days in early 2014, prompting many of the town's 12,000 people to flee.

An official inquiry into the fire, chaired by Bernard Teague, was reopened in May and is expected to report on health-related effects by December.

Last month, police charged a 20-year-old man, who cannot be named, with arson and recklessly causing a bushfire over the blaze in the Latrobe Valley, which spread to the Hazelwood mine.

He was bailed to return to court in September.

On Thursday, GDF Suez spokesman Trevor Rowe told AAP the company had not changed its stance since last week.

"We've made our position pretty clear to the CFA, and that's the appropriate place to put it," he said.

"Our costs associated with the fire operation and getting back to normal cost us $40 million to date, and it's still going."


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Source: AAP


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