Land and groundwater related legislation
This page provides information about the following policies:
- State Environment Protection Policy (Prevention and Management of Contamination of Land)
- State Environment Protection Policy (Groundwaters of Victoria)
- Industrial Waste Management Policy (Waste Acid Sulfate Soils)
For more information, also refer to the Environment Protection Act 1970.
State Environment Protection Policy (Prevention and Management of Contamination of Land)
This policy was gazetted as:
- State Environment Protection Policy (Prevention and Management of Contamination of Land)
No. S95, Gazette 4/6/2002
View the Gazette (No. S95) (Adobe PDF file from Craftsman Press - the Victorian Government Gazette printer).
Hard copies (paper) are available for viewing at the EPA Victoria Library.
The SEPP (Prevention and Management of Contamination of Land) establishes general uses of land in Victoria and provides a mechanism for determining whether these uses are being protected, such as indicators and objectives of use in assessing impacts.
The SEPP also identifies the links between the environmental audit system and the statutory planning system, ensuring sites that need to be audited are subject to audit, and that any conditions associated with the audit outcome are implemented.
The SEPP further sets out requirements for the prevention of contamination, reinforces the role of the waste hierarchy in selecting preferred approaches for site clean-up and identifies measures by which people can access relevant information on site contamination.
Get more information about this topic.
State Environment Protection Policy (Groundwaters of Victoria)
This policy was gazetted as:
- State Environment Protection Policy (Groundwaters of Victoria)
No. S160, Gazette 17/12/1997
As varied 19/3/2002, No. G12, Gazette 21/3/2002
View the variation of the Gazette (No. G12) (Adobe PDF file from Craftsman Press - the Victorian Government Gazette printer, see pages 530 and 531).
View the Gazette (No. S160) (Adobe PDF file, 1660KB or 1.7KB).
Hard copies (paper) are available from the Information Victoria Bookshop and for viewing at the EPA Victoria Library.
The SEPP (Groundwaters of Victoria) was developed to meet community demands for an integrated framework of environment protection goals for groundwater. It aims to maintain and, where necessary, improve groundwater quality to a standard that protects existing and potential beneficial uses of groundwaters. It sets a consistent approach to, and provides quality objectives for groundwater protection throughout Victoria. This policy overrides all existing groundwater protection provisions in other SEPPs.
Industrial Waste Management Policy (Waste Acid Sulfate Soils)
An acid sulfate soil is any soil, sediment, unconsolidated geological material or disturbed consolidated rock mass containing metal sulfides exceeding criteria published by the Authority.
More information about the IWMP (Waste Acid Sulfate Soils)
Publications
Information concerning contaminated land and environmental auditing is also available.