Contaminated land occurs where hazardous substances are at concentrations above
background levels and assessment indicates it poses or is likely to pose an
immediate or long term hazard to human health or the environment (page 1).
Contamination is usually the result of previous land use, and may be associated
among other things with, airports, chemical manufacture and industrial plants,
dry cleaning establishments, service stations and horticulture (page 2).
There are no reliable statistics on the extent of contaminated land across
NSW. Some estimate that NSW has approximately 60,000 contaminated sites, with
some 7000 possibly requiring remediation at a cost of $2 billion. Presently,
there is no statutory requirement to report the existence or ownership of a
contaminated site.
The Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC)
has developed guidelines for both the management and financial liability of
contaminated sites (pages 3-7).
The EPA administers contaminated sites under the Environmentally
Hazardous Chemicals Act 1985 and the Unhealthy Building Land Act
1990 (pages 7-9). The present legislation dealing with contaminated sites
is considered to be limited in its scope and effectiveness. In response to
these limitations, the NSW government released a draft exposure of the
Contaminated Lands Management Bill 1997 on 15 October 1997. The Bill is
divided into 11 Parts and provides specifically for the management of
contaminated lands (pages 9-18). Much of the Bill follows from the ANZECC
recommendations. In early November 1997, the government also released the draft
State Environmental Planning Policy No 55 - Remediation of Land. The policy
defines when consent is required to remediate land and requires remediation
work to meet certain standards (pages 18-20).
