EPA appears to have listened to community on power station licensing

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Work will begin on implementing a range of improvements for the state’s four coal-fired power stations following the NSW Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) recent community consultation and review of environment protection licences.

By the EPA

The statutory five-yearly review, which received over 100 submissions, is the first step to ensure the licences reflect best practice and enables the community to provide feedback.

The EPA has considered the community’s feedback and will now work with the operators of Eraring, Mount Piper, Vales Point and Bayswater power stations to progressively vary their licences over the next 12 months to:

· review air emissions limits for some metals

· review the frequency of air and water monitoring

· review and improve monitoring and public access to information

· increase community and stakeholder engagement by power stations

EPA Executive Director Regulatory Operations Jason Gordon said the EPA has a comprehensive and robust framework for regulating power stations in NSW and is committed to ensuring they operate with environmental responsibility.

“We received some incredibly informative and thoughtful feedback throughout the consultation period, which has given us a deeper understanding of the community’s priorities for our ongoing regulation of power stations,” Mr Gordon said.

“Ensuring we have strong air and water pollution controls, best practice management of coal ash, and more access for the community to monitoring data will be among our key areas of focus for our ongoing conversations with the power station operators.”

Along with licence variations to address pollution concerns and improve community engagement, the EPA will continue to support the power stations to prepare, implement and report on climate change mitigation and adaptation plans as part of the EPA’s Climate Change Action Plan 2023-26.

You can find a copy of the consultation report on the EPA’s Have your Say webpage: yoursay.epa.nsw.gov.au/review-of-power-station-licences.

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