Albury's airport tyre dump crisis erupted in drama on Friday afternoon when police were called to the scene where it was suspected men were trying to dump more tyres at the site.
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Two police cars, NSW Environment Protection Authority agents and Albury Council officers arrived at the Bennu Circuit site just after midday on February 23.
A bystander said police were called after a truck allegedly laden with tyres entered the property. A utility vehicle was seen at the gate of the property blocking the truck's exit.
Carbon MF director Mark Fair, who was found in November by the NSW Land and Environment Court to have illegally stockpiled the tyres, was at the scene.
Mr Fair said no one had been arrested and that the whole thing "was just a misunderstanding".
"The guy cleaning up the site has offered to take a sample load," Mr Fair said. "And we've got to get it to him. The confusion was, the boys thought the load was to come here.
"It was meant to go to Melbourne, but they dropped them here by mistake - it's that simple. My guys rang me and said they've been locked in the yard, that's why I'm here to pick them up."
Mr Fair said he was "a victim of the EPA" and that he had done his best to solve the problem.
"The EPA withheld information from me for six months," he said. "This site would have been cleaned if it wasn't for that.
"When this started, I asked the EPA for a lawful place to take them. They didn't get back to me for six months but by then I was out of money, and I was in trouble.
"And all the stuff I was going to take to market, they said no, you can't do it, in New South Wales it's illegal to recycle tyres.
"I checked with all the landfills, no one wanted it. I didn't know there were private quarries that would take it. So if they told me this when I asked for help, this would have been all sorted."
Mr Fair denied the stockpile was a safety hazard.
"I can hold a blowtorch to one of these - it's a 450 degrees ignition point," he said. "So, they're in fantasy land if they think they're going to self combust."
Albury Council compliance officer Andrew Hill, who was at the scene liaising with EPA officers, said the council's role was only to ensure the safety of the site.
"Our involvement is that we requested Dahlsens to implement some fire safety measures, security measures, we requested they install 24/7 CCTV cameras," Mr Hill said.
"There were tyres all the way up to the kerb, we asked them to push them back and to put up the temporary fencing, just to try to make sure the site is a bit more secure from the fire safety point of view.
"That's really the council's only involvement, we're working closely with the EPA."
The EPA, police and Dahlsens have been contacted by The Border Mail.
