Environmental compliance news for business

COMPLY. IMPROVE. PROTECT.

WA department does more site visits but complaints-driven visits drop; receives more than 1,000 contaminated sites reports

Despite chronic staff shortages triggered by the state’s resource boom, the WA Department of Environment and Conservation conducted more site inspections in 2006-07 than in the previous two years, new figures show.

In 2006-07, DEC carried out 294 site inspections to assess compliance with licence and legislative requirements. This was well above the 220 conducted in 2005-06 and above the 257 carried out in 2004-05.

However, the number of site visits in response to complaints dropped by about a third from 1,552 in 2005-06 to 1,002. This was despite a big increase in pollution complaints and overall complaints in 2005-06.

The environmental enforcement data also shows DEC issued 158 field notices, 51 infringement notices and two stop work orders in 2005-06.

DEC has struggled to fill vacancies and keep key staff as a result of the resources boom, with many lured by higher wages in the private sector.

Site contamination

Meanwhile, data in DEC’s just-released annual report for 2005-06 shows the impact of the Contaminated Sites Act and associated regulations that commenced on December 1, 2006. The annual report says DEC received about 1,000 new reports of known or suspected contaminated sites during a six-month grace period that followed the Act’s commencement.

More than 375 sites had been classified under the Act by the July 1, 2007, the report says. Soil and groundwater investigations have confirmed the presence of contamination at about 100 of these.

2006-2007 Annual Report (Department of Environment and Conservation, October 2, 2007)

Compliance and activity report 2006-2007 (Department of Environment and Conservation, September 27, 2007)

Did you miss...

Footprint News has ceased publication

Footprint News has ceased publishing. We will contact subscribers with credit balances on their subscription period to arrange a refund.
The Footprint team. more