RESIDENTS are backing people power as pressure mounts to overturn changes to a planning document that will make more than 3000 Lake Macquarie landowners responsible for heavy industry polluting their land.
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Lake Macquarie City Council and the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) have snubbed a public meeting to discuss the issue on Monday at Argenton's Club Macquarie.
The planned changes to the council's Development Control Plan will make a blanket "assumption" that thousands of residential properties within a lead contamination grid, drawn up in 1995, are polluted by lead from the former Pasminco Cockle Creek smelter.
Boolaroo Action Group is fighting the proposed changes describing it as a way of making residents "officially responsible for pollution they had nothing to do with".
The group believes the proposed changes "fly in the face" of the NSW government's polluter pays policy and organised a public meeting to address community concern.
Lake council, the EPA and Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper were invited to attend, but only Mr Piper agreed.
Boolaroo Action Group spokesman Jim Sullivan described the response as "unbelievable".
"This plan puts the EPA and the council out of the picture forever in terms of responsibility for pollution of peoples' properties," he said.
"They won't even send a representative to the meeting to speak to the community about it."
Lake council's chief executive officer Morven Cameron wrote to the group on Wednesday declining the invitation.
"Council staff are not in a position to attend the meeting, however I would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm council's commitment to supporting residents to manage legacy lead issues," Ms Cameron wrote.
A council spokeswoman said the changes were designed to reduce costs for landowners who must remediate their polluted land to get a development application approved.
She said the plan was a recommendation from the disbanded Lead Expert Working Group's report that was adopted by the NSW government in November 2017.
The EPA's regional director north Adam Gilligan also declined the invitation on behalf of the environmental watchdog.
Argenton resident Stan Kiaos, who is also a member of the action group, described the snub as "bitterly disappointing".
In a letter to Ms Cameron on Thursday, Mr Kiaos said council had been provided with funding by the NSW government to address residents' concerns.
"I have lived in Argenton since 1957, over 62 years, and to think our council cannot give us one person for two hours speaks volumes as to how the council views the concerns of north Lake Macquarie residents," he wrote.
The Cockle Creek smelter closed in 2003 leaving three suburbs with large swathes of land polluted by heavy metals to be cleaned up at residents' expense. Lead can cause brain damage and life-long health problems.
Residential properties that are identified as containing black slag - a byproduct of the smelting process that was extensively used as landfill across the city for decades - will also be classified as contaminated.
Under the proposal, residents in the contamination grid who submit a development application to council will be forced to follow a standard remedial action plan and pay to decontaminate their land. The cost is estimated to be up to $50,000.
Residents who can prove their land is under the Australian safety guideline for residential areas of 300 parts per million of lead in soil will be exempt.
Previously residents were required to test before getting work done to determine if their land was contaminated.
The proposed changes do not apply to commercial properties, schools, child-care facilities, public spaces or council-owned land.
The public meeting will be held at Club Macquarie from 6.30pm on Monday.
