The state government will urgently review procedures for managing contaminated land in NSW, following a Fairfax Media investigation that revealed suspected contamination in residential areas was not being made public to protect house prices.
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton announced the review on Saturday after Fairfax Media revealed that the Environment Protection Authority had been keeping "significant" chemical contamination hidden to protect residential property prices.
"There will be an independent urgent review into the procedural guidelines for contaminated land management," Ms Upton said in a statement.
A timeframe for the review and any terms of reference were not disclosed on Saturday, but the minister denied the EPA had been preoccupied with maintaining land values.
"The primary focus of the EPA's work on contaminated land is maintaining the health and safety of the community and protection of the environment," she said. "That has always been the case and always will be the case."
An independent review last year found the authority had decided "not to routinely declare all sites where the contamination is significant enough to warrant regulation".
The authority wanted to avoid "blighting" land prices but its head, Barry Buffier, denied that property prices were the "driving factor" in the organisation's decision-making.
Environmentalists and the state's opposition said they were alarmed that residents throughout the state could be unknowingly living on top of dangerous chemicals.
Fairfax also revealed the EPA was struggling to assess and prioritise many thousands of sites that had been reported as contaminated.
"The NSW Environment Protection Authority is failing the people of NSW," said Labor's shadow environment spokeswoman, Penny Sharpe. "The development pressure Sydney is under means the EPA has to be doing its job even more.
The comments came as emergency crews were called on Saturday to respond to dumped building material found on a suburban back street and which was feared to contain asbestos.
Fire and Rescue NSW and a HAZMAT crew used glue to prevent the dispersal of any fibres within the debris, found on a backstreet in Clyde, about 20 kilometres west of the CBD.
Council contractors removed the material which will now be tested for the presence of asbestos.
