An "industrial scale" dump on a residential property near the ACT border is visited by hundreds of trucks from Canberra every day, concerned residents say.
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The Yass Valley Council says the dumping is not dangerous or illegal, but concedes there could be compliance issues with "the quantity of material going on to the site".
On Tuesday residents from Wallaroo, NSW, picketed a construction site at the Australian National University in a protest against the dumping.
For months clean fill soil from the university's Union Court redevelopment has been trucked across the border to be dumped at a residential property on quiet Oakey Creek Road.
Protest organised John Connolly said ACT developers should have to dump within the territory, rather than travelling to Wallaroo.
"At the end of Oakey Creek Road there is an industrial scale dumping site. I've seen four trucks lining-up to get in while others wait outside," he said.
"We might have 200 trucks coming here each day and this is just totally unacceptable to the residents."
The development application for the Oakey Creek property showed that construction work had been approved since June 2016.
Residents said this was when the first trucks began visiting to dump at the site.
Yass Valley Council planning director Chris Berry said the dumped material was clean soil, which had been approved by authorities as back fill for the construction of a house on the Oakey Creek property.
"We've had a number of inspectors at the site over the past fortnight, and the reports I'm getting is that the material is clean fill," Mr Berry said.
"There's nothing in the inspectors' opinion to suggest it's anything but clean material."
However, Mr Berry admitted there could be issues with the sheer volume of dirt dumped on the property.
"The real question is whether the quantity of material coming to the site is consistent with the approval. That's what we are trying to get to the bottom of," he said.
The development application shows the Yass Valley Council has approved 8,000 cubic metres of clean fill soil at the site.
Residents questioned whether it was even legal to dump there, given specific clauses in the development application governing the disposal of waste material.
"All construction and or demolition waste associated with the development shall be disposed of at a licensed waste management facility," the application read.
The Yass Valley Council said this was a boilerplate clause that related to "material emanating from the site, not material going to the site".
Residents believed it was not just material from the ANU site that was being dumped at Oakey Creek Road.
"The stuff coming from ANU is just what is going on at the moment," said one homeowner who asked not to be named.
"But it's come from hundreds of sites across Canberra in the last 14 months."
A spokesman from the Australian National University said the material transported out of the Union Court site was "virgin excavated natural material".
"A material can only be classified as virgin excavated natural material if it has been excavated from an area that is not contaminated with manufactured chemicals or process residues as a result of industrial, commercial, mining or agricultural activities," he said.
"To date, approximately 7,500 cubic metres of virgin excavated natural material has been imported to the building site on Oakey Creek Road in Wallaroo.
"No demolition waste or debris has been disposed of at the Oakey Creek Road building site."
