2014 Annual Report

1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014

Our regulatory approach

Environmental authorisations

The EPA administers environmental authorisations in the form of a licence, exemption or works approval for a prescribed list of activities of environmental significance under Schedule 1 of the EP Act. It currently maintains around 2,300 authorisations on an annual basis, with a standard term of five years.

New licensing systems are planned for implementation in the latter half of 2014 that will modernise the entire licensing function, improve online application forms and payments, and streamline internal processes.

Significant licences

Kimberly-Clark Australia Pulp and Paper Mill

The 50-year indenture relating to the KimberlyClark Australia Pulp and Paper Mill in Millicent, expires in October 2014. The EPA has spent a significant amount of time and effort working with the company to develop licence conditions, discharge limits for wastewater and a new water monitoring program in preparation for when the company moves to an EPA licence.

Santos Limited

Santos undertakes petroleum production activity in the Cooper Basin, and is regulated by both the EPA and DSD. Cooper Basin operations include an oil and gas processing plant and a waste disposal facility. Through the establishment and implementation of an environment improvement program, key projects undertaken in the 2013–14 include:

  • establishment of a new sludge management facility at the Moomba plant. This facility treats oil sludge generated from the production of gas. The facility aims to recover as much product as possible and to ensure wastewater generated from this process is suitable for disposal to the interceptor ponds
  • a trial approach to managing contaminated soils via insitu treatment of approximately 7 700 m3 of hydrocarbon contaminated soil. The results from this trial will be used to inform future management and handling of this material
  • upgrades and lining of all interceptor and evaporation ponds to the EPA requirements associated with the Moomba plant to ensure the risk of hydrocarbon contamination of soil and groundwater is mitigated.

Significant reforms to licensing requirements of desalination

Under reforms to the EP Act, desalination became a specific prescribed activity subject to EPA licensing requirements from 30 November 2013.

It applies to plants with a water production capacity of greater than 200 kilolitres per day, with licensing requirements being extended to include desalination plants that:

  • discharge waste to land
  • discharge waste that does not contain additives
  • comprise networks of small plants that desalinate water underground, and are within a 1-km2 area.

Under the reforms, all proposed developments of desalination plants requiring a licence under the EP Act will be referred to the EPA for assessment.

Any operators currently not licensed by the EPA must obtain a licence under the new arrangements.

Nyrstar

Nyrstar Port Pirie operates one of the world's largest lead smelting and refining facilities. The smelter is the source of well-documented lead contamination in the township, and elevated levels of blood lead in the local community. The recommended maximum blood lead level set by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is currently 10 µg/dL (micrograms per decilitre). Although strong improvements were achieved from 2006 to 2010 as a result of the 5-year tenby10 Program, it was clear that the ongoing improvements in emissions from the current plant would not achieve the goal of 95% of children below 10 µg/dL. By the end of 2013, 79.5% of children tested had blood lead levels below 10 µg/dL compared with 50.3% of children tested in 2004.

Following an extensive review of the Nyrstar's licence, the EPA set new conditions in 2012 requiring improvements to reduce lead emissions that would require the company to adopt industry best practice in smelting technology. To meet these requirements, Nyrstar submitted an environment improvement program that included a proposal to replace the existing sinter plant with an enclosed bath smelter.

In order to assess current industry technology and develop the role that it could play in Port Pirie, the EPA undertook site visits in 2013 with Nyrstar staff to two smelters in China that employed types of enclosed bath smelting technology considered by Nyrstar. Such technology, when matched with effective gas control, can significantly reduce emissions of lead and sulfur dioxide. It could also transform the Port Pirie operation to become a multi-metal smelting facility.

In December 2013, Nyrstar received major development approval for the transformation, to include replacing the existing sinter plant and acid plant by 2017. The total cost of the transformation would be $510 million and involve investment by Nyrstar along with state and federal government guarantees. In 2014, the EPA approved Nyrstar's Construction Environment Management Plan, which was a condition of development approval. Through 2014, the EPA has continued to work with Nyrstar in assessing its plans as it moved towards the construction phase of transformation. Nyrstar ceased the final processing of zinc at the Port Pirie site in June 2014. In future, zinc oxide will continue to be produced at the site, but shipped to Hobart for final processing.

SA Water

SA Water operates a number of wastewater treatment facilities across both metropolitan and regional South Australia. To better prioritise risk and rank regulatory effort for SA Water facilities, the EPA has separated the facilities into two areas: metropolitan and regional.

Metropolitan

The Adelaide Coastal Water Quality Improvement Plan, published in 2013, identifies a nitrogen reduction to 600 tonnes per annum across metropolitan facilities that discharge to the marine environment. SA Water's wastewater treatment plants at Glenelg, Christies Beach and Bolivar are major contributors to the discharge of nitrogen to the metropolitan marine environment. In response to this, and through negotiations with SA Water, the EPA has applied conditions to each of these licences to achieve nitrogen and suspended solids discharge reductions through the development of improvement programs. It should be noted that recent upgrades to the Christies Beach facility have resulted in this facility being able to meet current Environment Protection (Water Quality) Policy 2003 receiving environment water quality criteria, with the application of a mixing zone.

Regional

During 2013–14, the EPA developed a specific risk-assessment tool for SA Water facilities, which provides:

  • an effluent, quality based assessment across all facilities
  • a locationbased assessment, relative to sensitive receiving environments, such as marine sanctuary zones, recreational beaches and aquaculture activity
  • a performance assessment, including compliance history, dilution potential, age of plant and lagoon integrity
  • an assessment of external pressures, including development pressure.

These risk assessments resulted in the EPA identifying three priority sites for improvement works at Port Lincoln, Murray Bridge and Port Augusta East.

The main risks for Port Lincoln and Murray Bridge are the proximity of wastewater lagoons to groundwater and surface water bodies, and actual or potential lagoon integrity failure. In addition, development pressure has the potential to create odour issues at residential interfaces with the current wastewater treatment technology and infrastructure at both sites. Conditions requiring environment improvement programs (EIPs) to address these risks have been negotiated and added to both the Port Lincoln and Murray Bridge licences. The EIPs were submitted in May 2014.

The Port Augusta East facility discharges into a sensitive marine environment, and is close to both recreational beaches and aquaculture activity. A condition requiring a plan to maximise reuse via the Port Augusta Council's reuse plant has been added to the licence, as well as consideration of using the council's reuse plant as a 'secondary treatment process' to further remove nitrogen and suspended solids, prior to returning water to the SA Water facility for discharge. This approach will ensure effluent water quality improvements as well as reductions in flow, which together will deliver a reduction in nitrogen and suspended solids loads.

OneSteel Whyalla

OneSteel Manufacturing Pty Ltd operates an integrated iron and steel works at Whyalla. The company does not hold a licence directly under the EP Act. Changes made to the Whyalla Steel Works Act 1958 in 2005 resulted in the EPA licence being replaced with an environmental authorisation. This is referred to as the 'indenture licence' under the Whyalla Steel Works Act.

Under this arrangement, the EPA advises the DSD in relation to the scope and content of the indenture licence and continues to have a key role in overseeing the regulation of the site.

The following occurred during 2013–14:

  • Completion of a major overhaul of the fume capture systems in the steelmaking plant. This resulted in a significant reduction in reportable stack emission events from the previous year.
  • Submission of a detailed study aimed at providing a better understanding of the relationship between ammonia discharges and the health of the adjacent seagrass communities in False Bay. This will assist to inform decisions around any future required actions by OneSteel in relation to these discharges.

BHP Billiton (Olympic Dam) Project

The BHP Billiton (Olympic Dam) Project has a multi-mineral ore body, and consists of an underground metalliferous mine and metallurgical processing plant. It has the world's 4th largest copper deposit, 5th largest gold deposit and largest uranium deposit. It also contains significant quantities of silver and incorporates Australia's largest underground mine. It is licensed under the EP Act for several activities of environmental significance, including metallurgical works, mineral works and chemical works. The site also holds a licence for mining or mineral processing in accordance with section 24 of the RPC Act.

There were several minor issues relating to EP Act licence management, which were actioned at Olympic Dam, including the following:

  • a voluntary environment improvement plan (EIP) was accepted to improve the environmental performance of the sewage treatment lagoon on the mine site
  • variation of the licence was made to allow wetabrasive blasting activities on site
  • the EPA determined that all reasonable and practicable measures were taken and put in place following an investigation into barium sulfate (BaSO4) discharges to a site stormwater lagoon.

A condition was added to the licence under the RPC Act to allow annual update of the project’s radiation management plan.

The EPA also provided advice to the DSD in relation to the review of BHP Billiton’s environment protection and management program (EPMP) as required under the Roxby Downs (Indenture Ratification) Act 1982. This document incorporates the radioactive waste management plan required through the RPC Act licence.

Penrice Soda Products, Osborne

Penrice Soda Products is licensed by the EPA as a chemical manufacturing works, and is located at Osborne on the LeFevre Peninsula. Penrice was Australia’s only soda ash manufacturing facility until 30 June 2013, when it ceased production of this material. Since then, the company has manufactured sodium bicarbonate and quicklime, and distributed imported soda ash.

The EPA imposed new licence conditions on Penrice, which required the cessation of discharge of ammonia from the factory and specified an annual limit on suspended solids discharges to the Port River of 2 000 tonnes.

Penrice went into voluntary administration on 11 April 2014 and announced closure on the 24 June 2014.

Adelaide Brighton Cement (ABC), Birkenhead

Adelaide Brighton Cement (ABC) manufactures portland cement at its Birkenhead facility and currently holds an licence to undertake the following prescribed activities: cement works; activities producing listed wastes; bulk shipping facilities; crushing, grinding and milling of rock, ores and minerals; and fuel burning at a rate of heat release exceeding five megawatts, all of which are associated with the production and export of portland cement.

The current licence requires ABC to implement an environmental improvement plan (EIP) to reduce the impacts of its activities, and to meet specific monitoring and reporting requirements. During the last 12 months, several items have been actioned to ensure continuous improvement of environmental performance, with the focus being on reducing ambient dust levels (particulates), noise generation and the visual impact of the site.

Actions during 2013–14 include:

  • installation of an additional truckwash facility. This has reduced dragout dust from the filling of bulk road tankers.
  • construction of a loading canopy adjacent to the Gantry Clinker Shed. Particulate measurements from this area of the site have subsequently reduced.
  • completion of the 4A stack silencer refurbishment, which is a component of the site noise reduction program. Latest available noise monitoring shows that the identified dominant tone in noise from this source has been eliminated.
  • improvements to the emissions filtration systems are being undertaken to ensure that emissions of particulates, nitrous oxides, sulfur oxides and carbon dioxide are minimised. This work has included an ‘air leakage program’, which involved replacement of major expansion joints throughout the process.
  • commencement of an expansion to the site wetland, with over 7 500 m2 of wasteland cleared and over 200 native plants being planted. The completed wetland area will consist of two large ponds and several mounds, making the area a much larger and more diverse wetland/ecosystem.

The EIP has been developed in consultation with the Adelaide Brighton Cement Community Liaison Group and is valid until December 2015.

Licence management plans

The EPA achieved its target of 100% of licence management plans in place by December 2013 for Tier 1 and 2 licences.

Licence management plans are used to guide continuity in the management of higherrisk licences.

Plans are based on an assessment and appropriate management of environmental risk posed by the licence and operation, and are updated on an annual basis to provide guidance and ensure that priority actions remain current.

As a result of the changes to tier and new licensed sites, 94% of licence management plans are currently in place and up to date.