[Narrator]:
Environment Protection Authority Victoria is the state's regulator for pollution and waste.
We're taking stock one year in to our five-year strategic plan.
[Lee Miezis, Chief Executive Officer]:
It's been a really big 22-23 for EPA.
Some firsts: first criminal, first civil charges for breaches of the GED.
We've tackled some really complicated issues whether it's clinical waste, our response to floods.
We've done a huge amount of that practical, on-the-ground work with community with our co-regulators and it's just a real privilege to work with the people that make up EPA and those people are so critical to our success as an organisation.
[Narrator]:
Our programme of preventative inspections meant businesses were aware of their obligations and could prevent harm to our environment before it happened.
[Rob Tedge, Preventative Project Lead]:
We focus on harm prevention because it is the most effective way to protect human health and the environment.
[Sophie Gosch, Project Officer]:
It's not just about putting officers out on the field to do inspections, but it's also about using the other arms of the business and the tools and the levers that we have at our disposal to change behaviour.
Because we are taking that preventative stance, we're going then to teach them about their obligations, raise awareness of the risks that they need to mitigate, and has actually allowed us to bring other stakeholders out on site with us.
For example, local council, traditional owners and even some 'friends of' groups as well.
[Narrator]:
When emergency events impacted Victorians, EPA's collaborative approach became more important than ever.
[Viranga Abeywickrema, Regional Manager, South Metropolitan Melbourne]:
A lot of team members within the organisation supported our flood response and recovery work, using our influence with our partner agencies in government to make sure that there was a really coordinated whole of government approach and providing support to the impacted communities.
[Dr Paul Leahy, Principal Scientist – Freshwater]:
We supported the Emergency Management system in Victoria to provide advice on the basis of science around the risks for things like clean-up, clean-up of waste, clean-up of major facilities like landfills.
[Viranga Abeywickrema, Regional Manager, South Metropolitan Melbourne]:
Getting to know communities better, the key concerns for community who are dealing with the floods, who'd been impacted by floods and responding in a really quick manner.
[Dr Paul Leahy, Principal Scientist – Freshwater]:
We established a monitoring program really quickly to help Victorians understand what the risks were from things like pathogens and chemicals in the environment.
[Narrator]:
Investing in our people is key to our success. A focus on culture and reducing red tape helped our people to flourish.
[Angeleena Pala, Manager, People Experience]:
It's actually amazing to see EPA staff looking out for EPA staff.
[Manveen Kaur, Project Officer Water, Water Sciences]:
The team here has been so amazing, teaching me all the things that I need and supporting me wherever I was needed.
[Angeleena Pala, Manager, People Experience]:
We have a new and improved centralised recruitment design. We've reduced the administration by 80% for people leaders, giving them more time to mentor and coach, ensuring EPA gets the best talent.
[Narrator]:
Our scientists led monitoring and testing programmes to help the community make decisions each day and grew the evidence base to better respond to issues.
[Professor Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist and Executive Director of Science]:
Well we have a range of really important programmes that assist the community in understanding the quality of the environment. We have GardenSafe, which assesses the quality of people's soil in their home yards. We have Beach Watch and Yarra Watch, which tells people what the water quality is and helps them make decisions about going swimming and we also have AirWatch which gives information to communities right across the state about the quality of the air.
[Dr Minna Saaristo, Principal Scientist - Land and Contaminants]:
EPA science is there to collect the data, analyse the data, help the duty holders solve the problem and then move on and move beyond the problem and find solutions and slowly we are improving Victoria's environment.
[Professor Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist and Executive Director of Science]:
In addition to that, we also have vehicles which allow us to respond to incidents when they come to our notice. We're out within an hour. We support the community. We provide information and evidence. We help curtail the pollution spills. We help provide information to support the regulatory operations part of the organisation who will then make decisions about dealing with the pollution event moving forward.
[Narrator]:
We engaged directly with Victorians throughout the year to ensure communities could contribute on issues that matter to them.
[Steve Lansdell, Regional Manager, West Metropolitan Melbourne]:
We've worked with the community in so many different ways this year. Lots of community drop-ins or pop ups and that might be at the local lake or river, at a farmer’s market or often going to community halls talking about those issues, telling them what we can do, what we are doing and and find out more from them.
[Jacquie Stepanoff, Director Policy and Regulation]:
For me the best outcome is creating a space to lift beyond the everyday and talk about long-term environmental problems and what we can do together to solve them.
[Steve Lansdell, Regional Manager, West Metropolitan Melbourne]:
We've got really smart people that love turning-up to work and just love meeting all the different people we get to work with, whether that's local residents, whether that's businesses that know about us or don't know about us.
Never a dull day.
