State Budget 2018 wrap-up
In the recent South Australian State Budget, two announcements were particularly significant for the EPA: new licensing fees will be introduced for petrol stations, and the Dob in a Litterer initiative has come to an end.
Petrol station licensing fees are being introduced in light of the fact that leaking underground petrol tanks are a known cause of groundwater contamination.
More than half the contaminated sites registered with the EPA are current or former petrol stations, but currently, petrol retailers are not required to have an EPA licence.
With the introduction of licensing, the EPA will be able to put conditions on the way petrol stations operate that will reduce the potential for contamination in the future. It will also allow for communities to be notified of new applications.
Fees have not yet been determined, but the EPA has begun consulting with industry on how licensing will be implemented.
The Dob in a Litterer scheme began in February 2017 as a way for people to easily report motorists throwing rubbish from cars.
The app-based program was successful in raising the profile of the problem of littering, and in its 18 months of operation, there were 1938 reports resulting in 1175 expiations.
However, it was expensive to run, and there was no evidence that it was having any impact on reducing the rate of littering.
Under the savings required through the State Budget, the decision was made to discontinue Dob in a Litterer to allow the EPA to refocus its efforts on more significant state-based issues, including regulation of all licensed premises under the EPA Act, and issues associated with industrial and commercial-scale activities.
Littering remains illegal. People can still be fined. Local councils issue littering fines, as they could before the program began and while it was running, and some councils have also started using the strengthened littering enforcement provisions that came into effect in February 2017.
