Significant changes were made to the environmental regulatory regime in Victoria on 1 July 2021.
To explain how environmental licences will differ under the new regime, the Victorian EPA has released an updated guideline: Guidance for operating licences – Publication 1850.2 (Guideline).
The Guideline contains on overview of the likely changes to operating licences that business owners may expect.
New standard conditions
Each license will now be subject to seven standard conditions which will be common to all licences. These will replace the general standard conditions G1-5 used in existing licences. The new conditions include:
Risk management and monitoring condition
This replaces previous condition G5 and will require a risk management and monitoring program to be developed. The scope of this program is not limited to the primary category of the license but may apply to any risk that may arise from any activity being undertaken.
Reporting condition
This replaces previous condition G3 and requires licence holders to provide information and report on performance. Previously, licensees were required to submit an Annual Performance Statement (APS). An APS will still be required by 30 September 2021, however, after that date, an APS will no longer be required. Licensees will instead submit a Permission Information and Performance Statement (PIPS).
Record-keeping condition
This condition replaces previous condition G4 and requires licensees to retain information and monitoring records relating to any reporting or notification requirements. These records are required to be kept for 5 years be made available to the EPA on request.
Notifying condition
A new condition that requires the immediate reporting of pollution events to the 24-Hr EPA Vic Pollution Hotline. A secondary notification condition relates to the ongoing obligation to inform EPA Vic when certain aspects of a business have changed, such as addresses, insolvency, change of officer, etc.
Decommissioning conditions
For operating licences and permits, a standard condition will be included in the permission which requires the licence holder to:
− develop a decommissioning plan if one has not yet been provided to EPA as part of
a development licence application; or
− develop and maintain an existing decommissioning plan during the time period that
the scheduled activity is being undertaken.
Hard copy of the licence
Requires that a hard copy of a licence must be kept at the site and be easily accessible to persons who are engaging in an activity conducted at the site. The requirements of the license and applicable duties under the new environmental regulatory regime, including the general environmental duty (GED) must also be included in site induction and training materials.
Changes to sectorial and site-specific conditions
Amenity conditions
Many aspects covered by current amenity conditions will now be covered under the GED. Therefore, these conditions are likely to be removed though some sites and sectors may require more detailed amenity conditions. New sites with amenity issues are likely to have site-specific amenity conditions if relevant.
Discharge tables
In addition, licences with discharge tables will have conditions which specify additional parameters which must be included in a monitoring and reporting plan.
Other sectorial conditions
Other sectorial conditions will remain largely unchanged. In particular, conditions relating to the landfill sector have been rigorously tested over the past several years and will remain in place.
Specific conditions have, however, been developed for the waste and resource recovery sector. These types of sites require additional sectorial conditions to facilitate compliance with minimum risk management measures.
Consequential amendments
A number of consequential amendments will be made to existing conditions to update them to reflect the new legislative framework. A number of changes will also be necessary to address the deconstruction of the state environment protection policies (SEPPs) into the environment reference standards (ERS), which will require additional guidance.
Financial assurance conditions
− The financial assurance (FA) suite of conditions has been reviewed. Seven conditions have been drafted to cover the following scenarios:
− General FA condition 1 – Brand new sites (A01, A05 or A13);
− General FA condition 2 – Existing operating sites, except where General FA
condition 3 is desirable (A01, A05 or A13). May also apply to L02 or G04;
− General FA Condition 3 – Existing operating sites which have provided no or low FA
where EPA has already determined the form and amount, or where there are
compliance and enforcement concerns;
− Additional Landfill cell;
− Increased storage limit and FA (A01 or A13);
− FA by instalments; and
− Existing landfill FA calculation – Independent Assessment.
Next steps
Over the next 12 months, current operating licenses will be amended by EPA Vic to conform to the new regime, with licences being amended to incorporate the changes as set out above and in the Guideline.