State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Name:
Organisation: GHD
Date: 13 July 2015
This template is provided to help you respond to the State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) discussion paper. Please answer as many or few questions as
you would like to provide input for. All submissions will be considered by DELWP in the development of the draft policy and policy impact assessment. Any
group or individual that provides comment will be kept informed and included in further consultation.
The information you provide in your submission will only be used by DELWP and EPA for the purpose of reviewing Water SEPPs. However, it may also be disclosed
to other relevant agencies as part of the consultation process. All submissions will be treated as public documents and may be published online for public access.
While formal requests for confidentiality will be honoured, please note that freedom of information access requirements will apply to all submissions.
If you wish to access information in your submission once it is lodged with DELWP, you may contact the SEPP (Waters) Review team by email at
Water.SEPPreview@delwp.vic.gov.au.
Questions from discussion paper
Please enter your response
GHD appreciates the opportunity to provide comment on the revision of the State
Environment Protection Policy (Waters).
Any general comments on the proposed scope of State
Environment Protection Policy (Waters):
GHD is one of the world’s leading professional services companies and delivers engineering,
architecture, environmental and construction services to public and private sector clients
across five continents – Asia, Australia, Europe, North and South America – and the Pacific
region. In Victoria, we operate from our central Melbourne office and four regional offices
located in Geelong, Mildura, Morwell and Wodonga. GHD has a strong environment practice
in Victoria comprising over 100 staff working across a broad range of environment disciplines,
for which SEPP (Waters) is relevant to many. We have drawn from the experience of our
team, particularly in surface and groundwater management in formulating our response.
After more than 10 years in operation, we believe there is benefit in reviewing the water
SEPPs, seeking to update and streamline them so that they remain a relevant statutory policy
for protecting and enhancing Victorian waters, and providing a clear framework for managing
current and potential impacts on them.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
The SEPP (Waters) Review discussion paper provides some good information on the DELWP’s
and EPA’s early thinking of how to refine the water SEPPs. We are supportive of the following
suggested amendments:

Looking to streamline the SEPPs while keeping the fundamentals unchanged (use of
segments, beneficial uses, environmental quality objectives)

The inclusion of feasible objectives to define what should be achievable within the 10year policy cycle

The need to strike a balance between beneficial uses and economic and social
development

The proposed development of a separate SEPP (Waters) Implementation Plan to drive the
implementation of activities to meet SEPP objectives in priority areas
From our experience in applying the water SEPPs to the work we do for our clients, we also
believe the following areas of improvement should be considered to make SEPP (Waters)
more practical to apply and help in achieving its objectives:

Provide greater guidance on how the quality of discharges to receiving waters should be
managed to meet SEPP objectives and not compromise beneficial uses

Include other measures for groundwater classification, such as groundwater yield and
type of salts present for example, other than TDS

Review marine segment boundaries to consider hydrodynamics, ecological diversity and
catchment water quality inputs

Reassess the list of beneficial uses once the groundwater and surface water SEPPs are
amalgamated to remove duplication and ensure it is sensible

Provide clarity and transparency in derivation methods applied for the objectives

Consider stygofauna for inclusion as an indicator of groundwater health
GHD values the opportunity to provide this response to DELWP for consideration. We hope it
will be useful and look forward to ongoing participation in the review of the SEPP (Waters).
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 1: What is your understanding of your roles and
responsibilities under Water SEPPs?
As consultants, GHD’s role is to assist clients in understanding their responsibilities under the
SEPPs both in relation to ongoing environmental compliance and proposed activities they
undertake in the course of operating their business. This could be an assessment of
contaminated land, discharge to surface water or the design and operation of irrigation and
dryland related surface and subsurface drainage works.
For GHD, the main sections that are frequently referenced and reviewed are the policy
principles, beneficial uses, the indicators and objectives and Clause 19 Polluted groundwater
zones in the Groundwater SEPP.
Some suggested improvements include:
Question 2: What aspects of Water SEPPs does your organisation
currently use? How could Water SEPPs be improved to assist
your organisation’s day-to-day operations and longer-term
strategic planning?
•
Better alignment of the SEPP with ANZECC guidelines. For example, Part VII,
Schedule A, clause A1(1) on page 30 of the SEPP does not align with the percentage
level of ecosystem protection in Table 3.4.1 in the ANZECC guidelines (see notes
about the grey boxes in the ANZECC guidelines and terminology about different levels
of ecosystem protection).
•
Clarification around water quality requirements of water discharged into an already
degraded surface water. It is understood that if background water quality levels in
the receiving waters are above SEPP, there are no requirements to improve the
quality of the water being discharged beyond those background levels. Should there
be a catchment context that needs to be taken into consideration in these
circumstances? Also, in a degraded environment, the biological monitoring is not
sensitive enough to pick up changes.
Clarification on when biological monitoring is required.
•
Question 3: Do you have any concerns about the proposed
working title of State Environment Protection Policy (Waters)? If
so, what are they?
Both the groundwater and surface water SEPPs contain the word “Victoria” in its title (i.e.
Groundwaters of Victoria and Waters of Victoria). It would be useful to retain this state
designation to highlight that this is Victorian specific legislation.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 4: What is the best way to reflect what is feasible
versus what is aspirational in the context of a 10-year policy
cycle?
It would be important to be clear and provide definitions of what feasible and aspirational
mean, particularly in terms of timelines. Establishing numerical environmental quality
objectives for feasible and aspirational objectives would also provide clear guidance on what
magnitude of change is required to protect and enhance beneficial uses.
The attainment program and implementation plan should then set out what is required to
achieve the feasible objectives over the 10 year life of the SEPP, and the aspirational targets
over the a longer timeframe, which should be defined (say 25 years). This is likely to require
significant community consultation, and a clear understanding of the costs and benefits of
achieving both the feasible and aspirational targets. The process for developing the feasible
and aspirational objectives, how they should be used and when they should be attained
should be clearly documented in supporting documentation or guidelines.
Question 5: Do you support the proposed SEPP (Waters)
objective of “this policy is to protect and improve the quality of
Victoria’s waters while providing for economic and social
development”? Why?
Is this not covered as part of the need to protect “beneficial uses”? Should the objective be
reworded:- “this policy is to protect and improve the quality of Victoria’s waters and their
beneficial uses whilst balancing the need for economic and social development”?
Again, feasible and aspirational objectives and their attainment requirements need to be
clearly stipulated.
Question 6: Do you support the need to balance economic and
social development with overall protection and improvement of
water quality for Victoria’s water environments? Why?
Yes, but it should be dealt with on a case by case basis as the balance between
economic/social development and water quality can be complex and dependent on the
scenario.
A triple bottom line approach, based on risk to environment/economy/society, would be a
good approach to achieving a balanced outcome.
Question 7: What are the challenges of balancing economic and
social development with protecting and improving water quality?
How should we manage the appropriate trade-offs between
them?
As discussed above, a triple bottom line approach based on risk should be developed to
support decision making related to the SEPP. The incorporation of the use of offsets may be
a way to facilitate the achievement of a balance, whereby the impact to water quality is offset
by investment in another area that lead to a net increase in environmental quality or an
overall enhancement to beneficial uses.. For example, to offset the nutrient component of a
wastewater treatment plant effluent discharge into a waterway, stormwater treatment in a
neighbouring urban centre could be implemented to reduce nutrients entering the waterway,
as described in the Water Quality Offsets Framework by Alluvium (2015).
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 8: Do you foresee any problems or opportunities that
may arise from creating one consistent SEPP to apply to all
Victorian waters? Are there other options for streamlining the
policies that we should consider?
Question 9: Are there any specific types of water environments,
for example, a wastewater treatment lagoon, where you think
beneficial uses should not be protected?
GHD acknowledges that the consolidating of the groundwater and surface water SEPPs would
be beneficial. However, care must be taken when combining the two SEPPs to avoid:
• Increasing the difficulty or burden when updating the larger, more complex policy
which may lead to more of reluctance to make changes.
•
Increasing complexity of the document to read, understand, achieve consistent
interpretation and update.
Stormwater retarding basins and evaporation basins could be types of water environments
where beneficial uses should not be protected. However, instead of specifying individual
types of environments for exclusion, GHD supports the current SEPP clauses that describes
where beneficial uses are not protected:
(1) in circumstances where the background level would not provide for their protection;
(2) in artificial stormwater drains, artificial agricultural drains, artificial irrigation channels and
drains or artificial wetlands (see clauses 46 and 51). These artificial environments need to be
managed for the purposes for which they were constructed and must be designed and
managed so that they are not harmful to humans or have unacceptable impacts on animals,
and so that their impact on surface waters is minimised. Although beneficial uses are not
protected in these artificial environments, it is not acceptable to dump or illegally discharge
wastes into them.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 10: Do you think the current measures for classifying
surface water and groundwater segments are still appropriate?
Are there other measures that should be explored?
The incorporation of an urban segment is useful for surface waters but consideration should
be given to expanding it to cover Melbourne’s extended metropolitan area and the urban
areas outside the Melbourne metro area where certain beneficial uses may not be
appropriated. For example the Yarrowee River runs through Ballarat and receives most of the
stormwater flows in this regional urban centre.
In terms of groundwater, due to advancements and decreasing cost in desalination
technology, managing water salinity is becoming less definitive in assigning beneficial use in
groundwater. For example, the TDS for a particular groundwater could be categorised as
Segment D due to high salinity. Under that segment, the beneficial uses that are protected
are “industrial water use” and “buildings and structures”. However, someone could extract
the water, desalinate it and use it for stock watering. Therefore, protection of these
beneficial uses may not be captured.
In drafting the new SEPP, consideration needs to be given to cost effective technologies for
groundwater desalination that may affect how beneficial uses are designated. Groundwater
yield, related desalination costs and the type of salts present may be more relevant. What is
being protected will also need to be clearly defined.
The groundwater segments should better align with council zonings. For example, stock
water should not be a protected beneficial use in urban areas where keeping stock is not
permitted under council by-laws. Bores registered for stock watering in these areas have
generally long since been abandoned.
Question 11: Are there any problems with the spatial
arrangements or segment boundaries in the existing Water
SEPPs? If so, what are they?
The segments boundaries for marine areas (namely Western Port and Port Phillip Bay) need
to be reconsidered to reflect the hydrodynamics and ecological diversity of these areas and
catchment input to them.
GIS based mapping of segments and sub-segments should be made available as per current
segments.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 12: What do you think are the advantages or problems
with the new approach to segments and sub-segments?
Based on the case study, the new classifications seem simpler to use.
However, some clarity around the definition for the designation of area as a sub-segment
would be helpful. For example perhaps it would be clearer if:
• examples of what can be included in sub-segments were added.
• it was explained that:
o they are only used when additional segregation is required
o They do not cover the whole catchment.
Question 13: Are there any features of the landscape that you
would like to see as a standalone segment or sub-segment?
Irrigation Districts where surface drains and water recycling occurs.
Yes, but :•
Question 14: Do you believe that all beneficial uses set out in
Table 2 of the discussion paper should still be protected under
the new SEPP (Waters)? Where do you think a beneficial use
would not apply? Why?
•
•
•
•
•
Question 15: What method or approach could be used to apply
the beneficial uses to segments and sub-segments?
why are “passage of indigenous fish” and “maintenance of indigenous riparian
vegetation” only required in the Yarra catchment?
Some amalgamation of beneficial uses could be considered, i.e. human consumption
and potable water supplies, and “agriculture and irrigation” and “Agriculture, parks
and gardens”.
Marine/estuaries could be used for potable water supply after desalination.
Rivers and wetlands in addition to groundwater are all sources of stock water
Groundwater as well as rivers and wetlands are suitable for “Human Consumption
after appropriate treatment”.
Groundwater should be included in agriculture and irrigation.
No comment.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 16: Are there any additional beneficial uses that you
believe should be protected? Are there any that you think should
no longer be protected? Why?
Not that GHD is aware of.
Question 17: What do you think about the current indicators, the
approach for deriving objectives and the proposed changes?
The current indicators are suitable. However, the addition of Victorian specific toxicants
would be useful.
Consistency of definitions between SEPP and ANZECC guidelines as per response to
Question 2 would be useful and avoid confusion (i.e. how modified the ecosystems are).
It should be noted that changing the types of organisms and/or methods for quantifying
biological indicators may not lead to an improvement in sensitivity over existing methods and
add value. A broader suite of appropriate tests could be provided so that the most
appropriate method can be used to define the health of a particular waterway.
Stygofauna should be considered for inclusion as an indicator of groundwater health. GHD
understands that this may be problematic due to the lack of Victorian based data in terms of
their distribution and environmental requirements or tolerances.
In terms of objectives derivation, there needs to be clarity and transparency in the approach
taken (i.e. methods used for derivations) and access to supporting scientific documents.
While the water quality objectives are set for the a 75th percentile, there is uncertainty around
the impact of a single discharge event of a water quality exceeding SEPP objective. A
discussion needs to be included around acute and chronic guideline values, and how they
affect aquatic ecosystems. There is not much discussion on what happens during flood flows
when concentrations are typically high compared to low flow times, and how these short
term high concentrations affects aquatic ecosystems. This may have implications for the
management of short term wastewater treatment plant discharges which may cause
temporary high concentrations in a receiving water.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 18: How have nutrient load targets been useful in
driving environmental investment outcomes? Would you like to
see a different approach, and if so, what might that be?
The nutrient load approach has helped focus efforts (by the water authorities) in the
Goulburn Broken Catchment of the River Murray, the Macalister catchment of the Gippsland
Lakes and Port Phillip Bay. This is evidenced by the design approach taken to install high flow
diversion storages in the Shepparton Irrigation Region. This is also reflected in the approach
to financially encourage the construction of on-farm reuse systems in Goulburn Murray and
Macalister Irrigation District to reduce and retain nutrient in order to reach resource
condition targets which were set considering SEPP.
A load based approach is easier to manage in terms of cause and effects relationships because
in most areas, this is flow driven. The use of concentration based nutrient limits for diffuse
source management is resource intensive to monitor and manage. That is, data to support
the use of load based targets is easier and less expensive to monitor. An example of this is
fertiliser management and the uncertainty of how fertilizer application, which may vary
markedly across a catchment, relates to nutrient concentration in runoff and the
accumulation of nutrient mass from a number of sources over time to determine diffuse
source nutrient concentrations.
Question 19: What is the preferred method for management of
at-risk areas? Are there activities that need greater intervention
or regulation? What would the intervention be, for example,
voluntary or mandatory codes of practice, regulation via
licensing?
Similar to what is proposed, “at risk areas” should be identified by water quality triggers that
relate to the beneficial uses for the waterway/groundwater in question. Interventions should
initially be voluntary, possibly under the Catchment and Land Protection Act with regulations
being used in extreme cases, where community needs and expectations are not being
voluntarily met by the responsible body.
However, what is to be done with areas that already exceed current “trigger” levels? Should
the same approach apply?
Clearly defining how to identify and deal with areas designated as “at risk” should be included
in the SEPP (Waters) Implementation Plan.
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State Environment Protection Policy (Waters) Review
Response to questions from discussion paper
Question 20: What do you think the role of SEPP (Waters) should
be in identifying and filling knowledge gaps over the life of the
policy? How can we assure an adaptive approach within SEPP
(Waters)?
It is important that the SEPP (Waters) identifies current knowledge gaps, sets targets for
meeting these gaps and includes a process of continuous improvement that is transparent. As
time passes, the knowledge gap database should be updated to ensure that at the end of the
10 year life of the SEPP, the gaps remaining at the time are known. Expectations on achieving
targets for filling these gaps should be subject to funding being available.
The register of work required to fill the knowledge gaps should also be prioritised on a
benefit:cost risk basis. For example, research associated with “at risk” areas with high
economic or community impact may have a higher priority.
It is also important to consider various funding and cost share models (i.e. levies, fines,
offsets, taxes, donations) and how assistance from a range of parties (i.e. industry, community
groups, local councils, CRCs and state and federal governments) could contribute either
financially, in-kind or intellectually.
Any other information you would like to share:
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