Taxpayers will have to make up the shortfall, after project proponents paid insufficient money into the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Fund to buy required offsets.
NSW will require environmental impact statements for major projects to be certified by accredited environmental practitioners under proposed regulatory changes.
Two Whitehaven Coal businesses now face environmental penalties totalling up to $20 million, after failing to convince a NSW agency to accept their enforceable undertaking that included a large payment to the NSW Minerals Council.
A man who has already spent time in jail for fraudulently obtaining more than $200,000 by illegally disposing of asbestos-contaminated waste, now faces the possibility of a second jail sentence.
The NSW EPA is prosecuting the former director of a waste oil company that is under external administration, and has launched debt recovery proceedings against him.
The NSW government has launched a new fast-track environmental assessment program to assist about 30 major projects, and two transmission projects will be among the first to benefit from it.
A court has fined Sydney Water over a poorly-managed site clean-up, but has also warned the EPA that any allegations of recklessness should be made early in proceedings.
Coalition and Labor members of the NSW Upper House last night voted down a Greens Bill that would have banned the incineration of most wastes, but Labor said planning rules for waste to energy plants are too weak.