New EPA guideline on ‘establishing baseline groundwater quality’ released
To assist in understanding groundwater monitoring requirements for licensed activities, the EPA is developing a series of documents titled Guidelines for groundwater quality monitoring of regulated activities.
The series will comprise of the following publications:
- Groundwater monitoring bore network design
- Groundwater sampling
- Establishing baseline groundwater quality
- Establishing groundwater quality assessment criteria
- Developing a groundwater monitoring and management plan
- Groundwater quality assessment reporting.
The first guideline in the series has now been published, Guideline 3 – Establishing baseline groundwater quality.
The implementation of this guideline will be a gradual process during the next five years to ensure relevant stakeholders understand and apply the guideline. This will also allow time for clarification to be sought from the EPA where expectations are not clear.
While the intended stakeholders for this guideline are specifically EPA licence-holders who are required to undertake groundwater monitoring as a condition of licence, the document may also be utilised by other regulators as a suitable reference document for activities that are subject to groundwater monitoring requirements under different legislation.
Other guidelines in the series will be progressively published with an anticipated completion date for all by 2026.
Find out more: Groundwater | EPA
