REFERENCE DOCUMENTS - RAL25/0004 (As Published)

                    Flowchart and Summary of Contaminated Land Management
                    •    The contaminated land assessment framework is predominately led by the Environmental Protection
                         Act 1994 (EP Act) and the National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination)
                         Measure 1999 (as amended 2013) (NEPM).

                    •    The EP Act is administered by the State Department of Environmental, Science and Innovation
                         (DESI) and used by Regulatory Authorities to manage land contamination risks, such as at the time of
                         a material change of use or another relevant trigger.
                    •    A key tool for contaminated land management is the statutory Environmental Management Register
                         (EMR) that is a public register of land that has housed a current or historical Notifiable Activity.
                         -    A Notifiable Activity is one of 38 scheduled activities considered to have elevated potential to
                              cause land contamination, such as cattle dips, landfills, rifle ranges, scrap yards and service
                              stations.
                         -    Not all land that should be on the EMR may yet be listed.

                    •    Once on the EMR, if the land needs government planning approval for certain activities (such as
                         residential development) it will trigger a requirement for an assessment and, in some cases to allow a
                         sensitive land use to proceed, works to take the land off the EMR.
                    •    Sometimes the Notifiable Activity is only present (or has caused contamination) in a localised area
                         but yet due to legislative circumstances has resulted in the larger Lot or any sub-divided land parcels
                         to be listed on the EMR despite the real chance they have no contamination present. This is because
                         the system works on a Lot by Lot basis.

                    •    Land on the EMR is not suitable for low density residential or any other sensitive use listed in the
                         Planning Regulations (unless the land is firstly removed from the EMR because an assessment
                         cleared it of having any actual contamination, or after any remediation of unacceptable
                         contamination).
                         -    It is prohibited to build a house on land on the EMR (although sometimes this happens because
                              Council may miss the trigger, or the land is already zoned for residential use and is self-
                              assessable).
                    •    If you sell (or lease) land on the EMR, the EMR listing must be disclosed and often potential
                         purchasers (or lessees) may, all things being equal, choose similar land elsewhere not on the EMR.
                         -    Dealing with land on the EMR can cause concerns as prospective buyers or lessees may assume
                              the worst in the absence of some information about the actual contamination risk.
                         -    There are other considerations as well, which are mostly covered by this government website:
                              https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/pollution/management/contaminated-land
                    •    When land needs to be removed from the EMR, or to obtain a related statutory outcome regarding
                         land use, a contaminated land auditor (government appointed) would need to be satisfied that there
                         was no reasonable risk of contamination – they do this by reviewing a Contaminated Land
                         Investigation Document (CLID) (assessment report) prepared by a Suitably Qualified Person (SQP)
                         -    The SQP is a consultant that assists you with the contaminated land assessment process and will
                              often perform field works to collect samples of soil or water that are analysed at a laboratory for
                              relevant potential contaminants, as part of preparing the CLID report on the contamination status
                              of the land.




Document Set ID: 23717062
Version: 0, Version Date: 01/01/1900