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Objective

Recommendation

Key issues

Actions taken

Objective

To avoid adverse health and environmental impacts from land contamination.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Contaminated Sites Management System ensures that:

1. environmental and health risks arising from the use of contaminated land are identified and the necessary remediation is undertaken;
    
2. any change in the use of contaminated land to a more sensitive use includes an evaluation of the potential for adverse health and environmental impacts to enable necessary remediation to be undertaken;
    
3. for orphan sites which constitute a health or environmental risk, the Department of Environment and Land Management can undertake the necessary remediation and recover the associated costs as a charge against the land; and
    
4. Land Information System Tasmania (LIST) is capable of identifying those properties on which potentially contaminating activities have occurred.
    

Key issues

This information is available from Volume 2 of the last SoE Report (SDAC 1997), which can be downloaded. The final objective, final recommendation, and a summary of key management actions are detailed below.

Actions taken

There has been some progress in addressing the recommendation on contaminated sites since the previous SoE Report (1997), including the following initiatives through the Contaminated Sites Unit in the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment (DPIWE).

• Information Bulletins have been prepared to inform the community about contaminated sites issues. The Bulletins are available from the DPIWE web site.
   
• amendments to Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act 1994 are being developed. The amendments will help to ensure that the following issues can be addressed:
   
• potentially contaminated sites are assessed before they are redeveloped for a more sensitive use;
   
• Environment Protection Notices can be served for sites which are contaminated as a result of historical activities;
   
• land owners will be required to provide notification of contamination that is causing or may cause environmental harm of their property; and
   
• development of consultants auditing/licensing system.
   
• The Environmentally Relevant Land Use Register (ERLUR) is being developed. This is an electronic database, which has been designed for recording the location of properties where specific potentially contaminating activities have occurred. Currently, the ERLUR is not publicly accessible, but searches can be performed on request by contacting the Contaminated Sites Unit.
   
• Information and understanding has also improved since the previous SoE Report. For example, a report has been completed on the contamination of groundwater from landfill sites (Ezzy 2002).