If your licence contains condition ‘G2 Licence non-compliance and notification’ you must immediately notify EPA of non-compliance with any condition of your licence.
This condition aims to ensure that EPA is aware of any potential negative environmental impacts and can respond appropriately. To show compliance with this condition you must, as a minimum, notify EPA at the earliest possible moment after you become aware of:
- any discharge to air, water or land that is not covered in your licence
- an imminent threat to the environment or human health
- a situation that may affect or generate complaints from neighbours
- any other breach of your licence obligations.
You can do this by any of three means:
To use the Portal you will need an account. If you are registering a new account, it will take up to three business days to verify your details and make the account active.
You will need to supply:
- your licence number
- site details
- licence condition breached
- details of the incident and scale of issue
- name and number of a contact person onsite.
Additional things to consider
- If the incident is part of an emergency situation requiring police, fire response or ambulance, dial 000. The attending service will determine whether EPA emergency response is required and will notify EPA. Examples include a fire or major uncontained spill of hazardous material.
- If the incident is not an emergency, but a negative environmental impact or hazard may have occurred at the site, an EPA pollution response officer can provide advice to aid you in the pollution clean-up. EPA may also be in touch regarding any further follow-up required and measures to prevent future discharges.
- It remains your responsibility to manage any significant detrimental environmental impact, directly or indirectly associated with your non-compliance, and notify other parties, such as neighbouring land users and potentially affected members of the community.
- Notifications can be made to EPA about future events at the site, such as plant shutdowns, flaring incidents or night works that may result in temporary non-compliance with the licence or generate community concern.
- Under section 30A of the Environment Protection Act, EPA can approve the discharge, emission or deposit of waste from any premises into the environment; or the storage, treatment, handling or disposal of waste on or from any premises.
- Guidance for other conditions in this document should be used to determine whether the incident is considered a non-compliance.
Monitoring
Records must be kept of all non-compliances and notifications to EPA.
Community complaints
- All verified community complaints (linked to your operations) must be noted in your APS, as they are an indicator of licence non-compliance.
- As required by the relevant licence condition (for example, noise, odour or fugitive dust), you must immediately report the verified complaint to EPA.