Regional manager northwest at the Environmental Protection Authority Dr Scott Pigdon said Graham Leslie White had until February 2020 to comply with every requirement in the clean-up notice.

"There are a series of requirements within a clean-up notice that are usually staged out," he said.

"This notice has three-or-four requirements with time stamps and the first time stamp has been missed. We will continue to work with Mr White and follow up based on our compliance and enforcement procedures. Because it's an investigation I wouldn't want to say publicly (the penalties he may face).

"It was around security and signage - pretty standard stuff that we implement on sites. At this point in time all the vehicle access points have padlocks on them, so no one can access the site unless they trespass, which we strongly don't recommend."

Dr Pigdon said Mr White could ask for extensions to his timestamps, but had not requested that. Mr White was released from prison over serious firearms offences in September.

"Over the last couple of weeks we have been out drilling groundwater wells, and they will be finished this week," Dr Pigdon said. "They will be allowed to sit and settle, and we will come back and monitor and test them later this month.

"While we're here, we've got some large machinery currently excavating one or two spots where we believe there might be some buried chemical containers and waste. We're looking that as part of the investigation process, and that will be ongoing for the next week and a half."

There are 20 underground dump sites of suspected industrial waste at the 1400-hectare property on Kaniva-Edenhope Road. The EPA first visited the site in July 2018.

Dr Pigdon said the EPA would next host a meeting in Kaniva for the community in the third week of November, with a date and place yet to be confirmed.

"We're proposing to set up a presentation on everything we can tell the community at that point. We'll also provide a couple of state government bodies to participate in a Q and A afterwards," he said.

"We can only provide information that doesn't breach the investigation."

Dr Pigdon reiterated the area's groundwater quality was unlikely to be affected by the dumped waste.

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