The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has recently revised the statutory guidelines for land contamination report on April 3rd, 2020. According to the new format, land contamination reports must meet certain checklists and comply with requirements set by the agency.
The revised key guidelines for Preliminary Site Investigation NSW as mentioned by EPA are discussed below:
· Consultancy companies must take full responsibility to grab client’s attention to the topic of correct waste management- handling, treatment and disposal – to reduce contamination on existing land areas.
· Changing ‘Investigation Stages’ to ‘Report Stages’ and include at least 8 reporting stages.
· Conceptual Site Model forms a vital part of all reporting stages.
· Integrating data to formulate quality objectives in every stage.
· Referencing of waste classification is mandatory if it requires to be moved from site of origin to another site for right processing and disposal.
· Post remediation management is an important duty as a part of Environmental Management Plan (EMP)
· Provide detailed updated checklists for each reporting stages.
Importance of CSM as a part of Detailed Site Investigation NSW
A CSM is the basic framework for identifying contamination sources, pathway mechanisms, receptor sources and exposure details. It can be represented using statistical data like graphs or pie charts or simple illustrations like flow diagrams, tables or site relevant plans and figures.
CSM has two basic purposes of:
· Development of site assessment planning procedures
· Better decision making strategies can be adopted using high quality data of CSM
The EPA 2020 guidelines have made CSM an essential part of reporting states of Phase 2 contamination reporting. Therefore, certain changes need to be made in the conceptual modeling to get a better idea about the potential contaminants and the threats they pose to human health.
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