{"id":77,"date":"2012-02-27T06:04:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T06:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4vk.7ca.mywebsitetransfer.com\/blog\/?p=77"},"modified":"2017-02-22T19:37:56","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T09:37:56","slug":"nsw-tightens-environmental-incident-reporting-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.absorbenviro.com.au\/clone\/nsw-tightens-environmental-incident-reporting-requirements\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW tightens environmental incident reporting requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late last year, the New South Wales Parliament rushed through changes to the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act) regarding pollution incident reporting requirements.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed amendments to the legislation were prompted by an incident at a Newcastle Ammonium Nitrate plant where a release of hexavalent chromium into the atmosphere occurred in August last year. The plant has only recommenced operation this month.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The changes are yet to be gazetted, but are on the way, so I would suggest now would be a good time for companies to review their Emergency Response Procedures, especially if they have business interests in NSW.<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, this is an area where the majority of industrial sites are highly exposed in both a practical and legal sense. Major Hazard Facilities are already required to routinely test their Emergency Response Procedures. Other organisations are not compelled to adopt this level of due diligence, but I believe it is prudent to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The second major aspect of these proposed changes is the increased emphasis on providing information to the general community. This marks a milestone in the adoption of the \u201cCommunity Right To Know\u201d in Australia. This has previously been associated with United States\u2019 laws. I have consistently advocated an open, transparent and proactive approach by industry when dealing with neighbours. These proposed changes to NSW environmental legislation codify that type of approach.<\/p>\n<p>The details are as follows:<\/p>\n<p>1. The proposed changes to incident reporting requirements include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reduction      in the timeframe for notification to \u201cimmediately\u201d. Most other      jurisdictions allow less defined time periods<\/li>\n<li>The      requirement to notify up to six separate authorities of pollution      incidents including the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA); the      relevant local authority; the Ministry of Health; Workcover and Fire &amp;      Rescue NSW and<\/li>\n<li>Increased      penalties for breaches of notification requirements.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>2. In addition there is a proposed requirement\u00a0 for more thorough record-keeping and increased public disclosure on a \u201c community right to know\u201d basis:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Environmental      Protection Licence (EPL) holders must publish environmental monitoring      data on their websites and make them available to the public upon request      and<\/li>\n<li>The      EPA must make available details of mandatory environmental audits,      pollution studies, pollution reduction programs and any penalty notices      issued to EPL holders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>3. Stronger investigatory and auditing powers including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ministry      of Health to conduct a health risk analysis if requested by the EPA<\/li>\n<li>EPA      to conduct environmental risk analysis of the nature and extent of any      pollution incident; and<\/li>\n<li>EPA      to impose mandatory environmental audit conditions if the EPA reasonably      suspects that such conditions are warranted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>4. A requirement for EPL holders to prepare, test and implement a pollution incident response management plan (PIRMP):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There      is a range of offences regarding failure to comply with these obligations<\/li>\n<li>The      EPA may also require occupiers of unlicensed premises to prepare PIRMP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These proposed changes in NSW legisation should be an incentive to all Australian companies to both review and test their Emergency Response Procedures to ensure that they are effective and that staff know how to respond to an emergency situation in an appropriate manner.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>*Some of the information in this blog was originally published by Clayton Utz<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last year, the New South Wales Parliament rushed through changes to the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act) regarding pollution incident reporting requirements. The proposed amendments to the legislation were prompted by an incident at a Newcastle Ammonium Nitrate plant&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,87,88,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-conferences","category-environmental-training","category-recycling","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NSW tightens environmental incident reporting requirements - Absorb Environmental Solutions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.absorbenviro.com.au\/clone\/nsw-tightens-environmental-incident-reporting-requirements\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NSW tightens environmental incident reporting requirements - Absorb Environmental Solutions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Late last year, the New South Wales Parliament rushed through changes to the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act) regarding pollution incident reporting requirements. 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