The Indirect Thermal Desorption process used at the Olympics site has failed to meet EPA requirements for it to stay on site. It remains too toxic to go to ordinary tips and has to be disposed of to a licenced landfill. This is the same process that it is proposed to use at Rhodes.

The precautionary principle demands that a process which has failed on a much smaller site not be used on a more contaminated site involving much larger volumes.

Here is the confirmatory extract from a report from the OCA website.

"ENVIRONMENTAL MONTHLY REPORT
LICENCE NO. 56
JUNE 2001- JULY 2001

In accordance with the licence conditions and the requirements of the Olympic Co-ordination Authority (OCA), Enterra provides this monthly report for the Scheduled Chemical Waste (SCW) treatment project at Bennelong Road Homebush Bay North. This report is for the period
20 June 2001 to 19 July 2001 inclusive.

1.0 Project Status
A revised licence was re-issued by the EPA on 1 July 2001. The licence is now valid until 31 December 2001 and incorporates a licence variation which allows for the disposal of residual Stage 1 materials to a licenced landfill.
8 batches (Batches 49 to 56) of SCW were processed during the period covered by this report.
Plant operation was interrupted on several occasions during this period due to
unscheduled maintenance and plant upgrades.
Following EPA approval, 6,000 L of treated material consisting of 3 treatment batches was removed from site on 20 June 2001. The material was transferred to a licensed waste oil recycler.
All treated soil from the Stage I treatment works is held on site under plastic covers on the Stage I site area. The treated material was re-sampled on 20 June 2001 and
preliminary data from the sampling is currently the subject of a review."