Licensing questions and answers

Environment protection licences are issued for activities scheduled under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (the POEO Act).

Individual conditions are listed in each licence. Licences can be viewed on the EPA’s POEO public register.

The POEO Act requires that the EPA review a licence at least once every 5 years after the issue of the licence, as set out in Part 3.6 of the Act. The date of completion of the licence review is displayed under the licence details  in the POEO public register.

The licence review process complies with the requirements of s. 78 of the POEO Act and improves consistency both within individual licences and across industry sectors.

See Review of licences for details of the licence review process and a list of licences under review.

Notices can be issued to individuals or organisations that do not hold a licence, for example notices issued for littering, clean-up notices or noise control notices.

'Received' is the date the EPA received all the information required to begin processing a licence application, for which 60 days is provided. It is not necessarily the date the licence application form was received by the EPA.

If the status of a licence is 'no longer in force' it means that the activity no longer requires a licence due to an amendment to Schedule 1 of the POEO Act. However, the EPA remains the Appropriate Regulatory Authority (ARA) for these premises.

Scheduled activities are listed in Schedule 1 of the POEO Act and are required to be licensed by the EPA.

Fee-based activities are listed in Schedule 1 of the Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Regulation 2022 and determines licence fees for each scheduled activity.

This is a fee that must be paid when submitting an application for a new licence. For details of how the application fee is calculated, see section 3.4.3 of the Guide to Licensing.

This is a fee that must be paid by licensees at the start of each licence fee period. For details of how the administrative fee is calculated, see section 3.4 of the Guide to Licensing.

• Load-based licensing
• Using load-based licensing data
• The Guide to Licensing – section 4.4

Load reduction agreements (LRAs) are voluntary agreements between licensees with assessable pollutants and the EPA, pursuant to Division 6 of the POEO (General) Regulation. They provide immediate fee reductions for companies willing to commit to future reductions of assessable pollutants, thereby freeing funds for investment  in improved environmental performance.

Agreements last for a maximum of four years, giving licensees up to three full years to implement upgrades and one to demonstrate attainment of the agreed load.

Mandatory audits can be found on the POEO public register.

Licensees are required to report non-compliances with licence conditions to the EPA within 21 days of the becoming aware of the non-compliance. Details of non-compliance are reported by licensees are displayed on the licence summary page on the POEO public register.

Under section 66(3) of the POEO Act, licensees are required to submit details of the nature and extent of any non-compliance with their licence conditions. These details also include:

• whether the non-compliance relates to a pollution incident
• any action taken, or proposed to be taken, to prevent a recurrence of the non-compliance
• any action taken, or proposed to be taken, to mitigate the effects of the non-compliance.

Criminal prosecutions can be brought when a person is alleged to have committed an offence created by legislation such as the POEO Act. These must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The penalties that result from criminal convictions are punitive: a fine or gaol sentence can only be ordered in a criminal matter. The parties to criminal proceedings are called the Prosecutor and the Defendant(s).

Civil proceedings can involve other members of society, that is to commence civil proceedings a person  does not have to be part of a government authority. A person might begin civil proceedings to appeal licence conditions or to recover the costs of the clean-up of a spill. The EPA can also bring civil proceedings to obtain orders that a person comply with or to repair environmental harm they caused.