Licence limit, operating, monitoring and reporting conditions
The POEO Act and the Regulations made under the Act outline general obligations for licensees including:
- ensuring persons associated with the premises comply with the EPL (Chapter 3, Section 64)
- complying with environmental performance requirements such as pollutant concentration limits (for example, water and air - Chapter 5, Part 5.3–5.4)
- reporting incidents causing or threatening material environmental harm to the environment (Chapter 5, Part 5.7).
An EPL is granted to the licensee with site specific limits (for example, parameters for water quality, odour and noise, as relevant) and operating conditions, including competency and maintenance requirements. The conditions are aimed at preventing or minimising environmental impacts from the licensed activity.
Once the licence is granted, the holder should review all the conditions and create a plan to meet them, including allocating responsibilities. Larger operations sometimes engage a third-party consultancy to oversee monitoring and reporting requirements.
Licensees must submit an Annual Return to the EPA. An Annual Return includes a statement of compliance with the licence conditions and a pollution monitoring report. Annual Returns must be submitted within 60 days of the reporting period.
Site monitoring for an EPL may require a site-specific weather station, which must be installed and maintained in accordance with the EPA’s requirements.
Other monitoring requirements for an EPL may include groundwater monitoring, surface water monitoring, soil test results where manure streams are applied, and waste volume if manure or compost is removed from the site. Other considerations for sites may also include the management, testing and reporting on manure and/or compost exported off site.
Monitoring conditions and frequency are based on the site and environment and are detailed on a licence. Monitoring results and certain reporting requirements must be submitted with the annual return. Monitoring data must be published in compliance with the conditions of the EPL and in accordance with section 66(6) of the POEO Act. The EPA has specific requirements for how monitoring data is reported and published. Licensees must prepare a Pollution Incident Response Management Plan before commencing activities of the EPL.
The POEO Act requires that the EPA review an EPL at least every 5 years (Part 3.6 and Schedule 5).
Existing dairy animal accommodation EPLs
The EPA has identified common conditions for dairy animal accommodation EPLs (June 2023). These are for ‘Discharges to Air and Water and Applications to Land’. Table 7 provides examples of the monitoring required to demonstrate compliance with EPL conditions, including effluent quality monitoring (when effluent holding ponds are in use), groundwater quality monitoring, soil monitoring (in effluent utilisation areas), and ambient surface water monitoring (where there are adjacent waterways). The conditions require multiple monitoring locations for each type of monitoring to cover the activity area. They may also specify how many samples must be undertaken at each location. The EPL holder must ensure that monitoring and reporting is undertaken by suitably qualified specialists. The examples in Table 7 are common monitoring requirements; however, each premise’s monitoring requirements are based on the site-specific environmental assessment and therefore may differ from those listed in the table. The list of EPLs is publicly available on the EPA’s POEO Act Public Register. Reviewing existing EPLs indicates the environmental impacts and conditions that dairy animal accommodation EPL licensees must manage, monitor and report. It also gives insight into environmental issues that will need to be addressed in the SEARs/EIS assessment process. See the EPA’s POEO Act Public Register