Transcript for Onsite domestic wastewater management webinar - part 1

[On-screen text: Onsite Domestic Wastewater Management Information Webinar]
[On-screen text: 24 June 2024]

Abby Farmer (DEECA): Well, hello everyone. It's really great to see so many of you here today for this information webinar about profiling all the recent developments in this onsite domestic wastewater space. So welcome everybody.

I'd like to start with an acknowledgement of the Traditional Owners of the different lands on which we're all meeting today and pay my respects to elders past and present. And I'd like to extend this respect to any Aboriginal people who are with us in the webinar today.

The purpose of this session, the overall objective of this webinar, is to increase knowledge about the recent changes in both the policy and regulatory landscape, and showcase new tools to strengthen capability in onsite wastewater management.

It's also to support council planners, council EHOs and water corporation catchment planners in undertaking onsite wastewater management activities.

The webinar will also showcase the efforts of councils in improving the delivery of onsite domestic wastewater management through the delivery of projects funded by DEECA onsite domestic wastewater management grants program. And this and this session complements recent technical training led by the EPA.

The webinar showcases 2 themes.

The first one's planning and regulatory tools and, and tools and resources to support planning permit applications in open special water supply catchment areas or SWSCAs, I think they're called.

The second part is risk management activities, showcasing new resources, tools and examples.

Just before I hand over to our presenters, Caroline Chandler from E2 Design Lab and Richard Stevenson from Hansen Partnerships will guide us through the session today.

I just wanted to thank all those who've contributed to putting this session together – council practitioners, EPA, DTP, DEECA, and of course, as well as Hansen Partnership and E2 Design Lab. So over to you, Caroline.

Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Abby and welcome all today. So this webinar has been designed to address a range of current issues and challenges faced by practitioners involved in onsite domestic wastewater management.

DEECA sought input on webinar content through a recent survey of 55 environmental health and planning offices and this raised a number of key themes and areas of interest. So what you see on this slide is a summary of the key themes raised through this process.

Now the themes are consistent with feedback provided in 2023 during the review of the ministerial guidelines for planning permit applications and open potable water supply catchment areas.

We ran a series of workshops then that provided detailed feedback from over 190 practitioners outlining topics and issues where further clarity was required.

By surveying practitioner needs, we understood that you wish to be updated on changes in the policy and regulatory landscape, new tools in the planning space, and ways to reduce and manage risks associated with onsite wastewater systems.

Given the strong interest in case studies and collaboration, we've chosen to harness the outcomes and learnings of these recent projects delivered by council to demonstrate approaches to addressing these areas of interest.

Our key areas of focus for today are those that you see highlighted in green, so primarily focusing on policy planning and different approaches to the development, review and implementation of onsite wastewater management plans.

The webinar is not going to cover technical elements related to EPA specific technical guidance and the recent EPA technical training. So that includes the guidelines for onsite wastewater management and the effluent dispersal recycling system guidelines. We won't be talking through those now.

The survey findings have also been shared with the EPA and future training opportunity for some of these topics is being considered, for example, the regulation of legacy issues.

So the first part of the webinar will focus on planning and regulatory requirements that apply to onsite waste water management.
A reminder that today's webinar is being recorded and will be made available on the DEECA website for future reference.

Just by way of an agenda, we’ll commence with an overview of the planning and regulatory context, including a summary of overarching requirements, recent changes in the policy landscape, and new tools and resources. We'll also provide an overview of the updated planning framework for SWSCAs.

We'll then showcase relevant projects delivered through the DEECA grant programme through a series of vignettes that highlight novel leading approaches to meet OWMP requirements that form part of obligations of managers of land and infrastructure under the OMLI.

These include developing, implementing, and reviewing an OWMP and collaboration with relevant stakeholders. They'll be presented by guest speakers who are officers working in onsite wastewater management, and they will provide their perspectives from their experience.

Finally, we'll wrap up with an interactive Q&A session with panellists comprising today's presenters, guest speakers, and members of DEECA, and we ask you to post your questions as we go using the Q&A function. We also encourage you to use the forum to interact with others if you have comments to add.

If your question relates to a particular guest speaker, please note their name so we know who you're addressing, and we will review those questions as we go and prioritise them for response in the session.

Anything that we can't cover today will be addressed in an FAQ document to be provided to participants following the webinar.
So we'll start with an overview of the overarching environmental protection and planning framework for onsite wastewater management.

How are onsite wastewater systems regulated and what recent changes have been brought into effect that impact their management now?

The Environment Protection Act 2017 sets out the legislative framework for the protection of human health and the environment from pollution and waste in Victoria.

This is a responsibility shared by all levels of government and industry, business, communities and the people of Victoria and the Act came into effect in July 2021.

It introduces the General Environmental Duty or the GED, which establishes a prevention based approach to environment protection, rather than managing the impacts after they have occurred.

The GED requires that any person engaging in an activity that may lead to risks of harm to human health or the environment, from pollution or waste, minimise those risks so far as reasonably practicable.

The GED would require, for example, in this case, the proactive consideration of cumulative risk of existing and future onsite wastewater management systems on water quality and special water supply catchment areas that could arise from increased dwelling density, for example. The Environment Protection Regulations outline specific requirements for obtaining a permit to construct, install or alter an onsite wastewater management system.

Under the EP Act and the EP regulations, councils regulate onsite wastewater management systems that have a sewage flow rate below 5000 litres a day. EPA then delegates certain powers to councils under the Act to investigate contraventions related to onsite wastewater management systems, including the GED, and to issue improvement notices and prohibition notices for contraventions.

So in 2024, a new legislative instrument was introduced under the EP Act that sets Obligations for Managers of Land or Infrastructure. This is otherwise known as the OMLI.

The OMLI includes a requirement for council areas with onsite wastewater systems to develop and publish an Onsite Wastewater Management Plan, or OWMP, to identify, assess and address the risks of harm to human health and the environment that can arise from these systems.

It also requires water corporations to respond to Council's onsite wastewater management plans regarding their preferred sewage management solutions.

The OMLI was gazetted on 7th May 2024 and is now in effect.

Guidelines for onsite wastewater management and effluent dispersal recycling systems are also newly developed guidance to replace the previous Code of Practise for onsite wastewater management.

These guidelines were published by EPA in May 2024 and were the subject of recent training sessions organised by EPA for councils' Environment Health Officers.

From a planning perspective, the importance of catchment planning and management, water quality and integrated water management is specifically addressed in all planning schemes, planning policy framework; and a responsible authority must consider and give effect to the planning policy framework when it makes a decision.

The Guidelines for planning permit applications in Special Water Supply Catchment Areas are an important consideration for all planning permit applications to use or develop land in special water supply catchment areas.

The revised guidelines were published in February 2024 and will be discussed in more detail later in this webinar.
Finally, the Planning Practise Note 55 lists the guidelines, provisions and legislation in place to help protect open drinking water catchments, and this is currently being updated to reflect changes in the 2024 guidelines.

So it should be noted that in the case of the OMLI, obligations set out that relate to the development and review of an OWMP replace certain clauses from the State Environment Protection Policy or SEPP Waters, which has been phased out and incorporated into the current environmental protection framework.

The OMLI also introduces new requirements to consider the guidelines for planning permit applications in special water supply catchment areas.

There's also a range of new tools that have been developed to support the OMLI. Several of these tools are designed to replace previous guidance and there are four that we would like to highlight today.

Firstly, to support councils with onsite wastewater management plan development, the EPA is finalising guidelines for developing, reviewing and updating onsite wastewater management plans.

The OWMP guidelines will be supported by a supplementary risk assessment guideline and together these documents replace the Municipal Association of Victoria's Model Domestic Wastewater Management Plan released in 2005.

Additionally, there's been an opportunity to create some new resources and tools.

Sewer connection marketing materials have been developed to assist councils with promoting connection to sewer where it is available and this will be discussed in Part 2 of the webinar.

An OWMP review tool is being developed by DEECA and Coliban Water to support the process of reviewing an OWMP and this is to meet requirements under the OMLI that councils must, at intervals of no more than five years, review and update their OWMP. This tool will also be further detailed as part of the webinar.

As discussed, the OMLI also requires consideration of the planning permit applications and SWSCAs when developing, reviewing and updating an OWMP and an overview of planning tools that are available that support the guidelines will be provided shortly.

Now throughout the webinar, several council projects funded by DEECA's Onsite Domestic Wastewater Management Grants program will be showcased. Some of these tested new approaches, tools and resources as part of their efforts to improve and undertake ongoing improvements in the management of their onsite wastewater management systems.

We have 58 projects that have been recently delivered through the grants program. These include risk reduction projects that relate to areas such as water quality monitoring, inspection and compliance education and the building of onsite wastewater management system knowledge. There were also a number of planning related projects consisting of data improvements, developing or updating OWMPs, and strengthening risk assessments.

I'm now going to hand over to Richard Stevenson to provide an overview of the updated planning framework for special water supply catchment areas.

Richard Stevenson (Hansen Partnership): Thank you, Caroline. Good morning everyone.

As mentioned, my name is Richard Stevenson and I'm a strategic planner with Hansen Partnership. I'm taking the opportunity to provide a brief overview of recent updates relating to planning within Special Water Supply Catchment Areas, or SWSCAs for short.
In terms of an overview, all SWSCAs in Victoria are designated and formally declared under the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994. SWSCAs are categorised into two types, being either an open or a closed catchment.

An open catchment is defined where part or all of the catchment includes land which is privately owned. This results in access to the water catchment being unrestricted.

A closed catchment is defined where the whole of the catchment is publicly owned. This means public access can be controlled.
Within Victoria, there are 37 municipalities and associated planning schemes where land is declared as being within an open water catchment. And for reference, the map on screen illustrates in dark green where SWSCAs are located across the state.

I wanted to provide a brief update on SWSCA mapping and the spatial mapping of SWSCAs has recently been corrected and updated and is identifiable within VicPlan.

For those who are not aware, VicPlan is the State Government's online mapping tool and it can be used to generate a Planning Property report which provides relevant planning and related information for specify or for specific land.

By spatially mapping SWSCAs within VicPlan, it functions to ensure there is greater awareness of land within a declared SWSCA. And for reference, the image on screen illustrates VicPlan and where the relevant SWSCA layer can be found.

A current DEECA initiative which is in the pipeline, is for SWSCAs to be specifically identified within a Planning Property Report which is generated through VicPlan. By including SWSCAs on a planning property report will improve community awareness of land within a within a declared SWSCA.

In terms of the updated planning framework, the 2012 guidelines were subject of a detailed review in 2023. Following the review, an updated set of guidelines were introduced in February of this year.

The key elements of the updates relate to the streamlining of planning of language to clarify how and where are the guidelines to be applied. It also includes a diagrammatic example of the 1 in 40 hectare dwelling density requirement.

This diagram and the associated text will assist in how this requirement should be calculated and interpreted. But on that point, an important point to make is the 1 in 40 dwelling hectare dwelling density requirement is only one aspect of the guidelines.

In practical terms, the 1 in 40 hectare requirement indicates the threshold of the dwelling density where, when exceeded, it requires a greater level of risk assessment. This means that the 1 in 40 hectare dwelling requirement should not be used as the only or absolute measure of when a proposal should be supported.

Ultimately, a technical assessment of the subject site and the proposal will assist in determining the potential risk against the guidelines.

With regard to providing a brief overview of how to use the guidelines, they're specifically intended to assist council planners and referral authorities with the assessment of permit applications related to open potable water supply catchment areas.

The guidelines have been adopted by the Minister for Water and include policies that ensure wastewater generating uses consider cumulative risk, broader onsite wastewater management planning, the protection of vegetation corridors and waterways, the potential impact of building and works and effluent disposal areas and relevant agricultural activities.

A responsible authority may consider the guidelines as relevant before deciding on a planning application, but as an example, this may include a dwelling on land where there's an overlay which includes an objective relating to water catchment or water quality protection.

Relevant planning scheme references include clause 14O2-1S which is catchment planning and management, clause 14O2-2S relating to water quality and clause 19O3-3S integrated water management.

An amendment to update the planning scheme references is currently with the Planning Minister for a decision, but in the interim the updated 2024 guidelines may be considered as they've already been adopted by the Minister for Water.

The guidelines are also relevant to referral applications within a SWSCA, and this includes references to clause 66O2-3, which relates to cattle feedlots, clause 66O2-5, which is specifically for SWSCAs and clause 66O2-8 relating to extractive industries.

As part of the planning permit planning permit application referral process, the responsible authority must seek and follow the recommendations from a determining referral authority. The referral authorities may consider the guidelines to inform their recommendations.

I would also like to highlight the guidelines are further supported by Planning Practise Note 55 and Planning Practise Note 42. It's further supported by the Practitioner's Guide to Victorian Planning Schemes, as well as the updated guidance within the proposed amendments to the VPP, which is currently with the Planning Minister.

This concludes my quite brief overview of the recent planning related updates to planning within SWSCAs. I'd like to hand back to Caroline to continue the webinar. Thank you.

Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Richard.

So we're now going to showcase some examples of approaches taken by councils to enable them to be better prepared for meeting the obligations in the OMLI. We have 3 vignettes on the topic of developing an OWMP.

Southern Grampians Shire Council will discuss their experience and the use of property planning, land capability data and mapping on the topic of implementing a plan.

Central Goldfield Shire Council will discuss their experience in implementing a septic surveillance programme and associated materials and resources and on the topic of reviewing an OWMP.

Moorabool and Macedon Ranges Shire Councils will outline their experience applying the OWMP review tool to review their respective plans.

The vignettes are recorded, however guest speakers are present here today and will be available at the end to answer questions.
In our first vignette, Pauline Porter, Environmental Health Coordinator at Southern Grampians Shire Council, will provide an overview of the project to develop a land capability hazard overlay as part of the further development of Councils' OWMP.

Pauline Porter (Southern Grampian Shire Council): Southern Grampian Shire Council, we recently received some funding from DEECA to update our GIS on site wastewater management, land capability and mapping hazards.

Originally the mapping was completed in 2019, but we identified some misinformation through ground proofing to say which meant that we needed to update our mapping system for our wastewater.

The updated hazard GIS mapping enables the community and council to make a better informed decision in the management of onsite wastewater using the latest valuable data in a user friendly format.

The hazard mapping identifies levels of risks associated with the septic systems for long term sustainable onsite wastewater management throughout the Shire and also the potential risks of systems value and how to manage those.

The hazard mapping considers consider size, slope, soil depth, salt, hydraulic soil pollution, climate, water causes, water bodies, groundwater, flooding and environmental significant vegetation.

The update included multiple data sets which included the digital cadastre modernisation project, which was a state government project that was done across the state of Victoria.

Also new allotment layers, revised allotment boundaries, creation of new allotments, our catchment management authority flood mapping. Also council's planning scheme and amendment layers, the Victorian soil type mapping, the evaluation elevations and the meteorology data sets, and water supply project area.

So the mapping is a traffic light system, non CoS meaning that it the property is generally considered not sustainable to maintain wastewater within the allotment. However, there could be some measures that could be taken place while lower risk is go and there shouldn't be any major problems.

It's used by the council's town planners, engineers, planning consultants, land capability consultants, environmental health officers, developers, real estate agents, owners, people who looking at developing their land in unsewered areas. Also plumbers use it as well, to help inform their customers of what they could do on their particular on their particular property.

The key learnings from this particular project is to keep your GIS data layers up to date. There's always new data which makes the joyous hazard land capability hazard ratings more accurate and also working in conjunctions with many agencies, including water authorities, your GIS officers, state government.

The information that you see today is available on Council's external website on POSI and also publicly available in the Australian Open Government data.

Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Pauline.

Some more examples of recent grant projects focused on developing a plan should also be highlighted.

In the case of Pyrenees Shire Council, the grant enabled Council to review their 2015 plan and incorporate special water supply catchment areas in the new plan, and this new plan has also incorporated actions to improve Council's wastewater data recording systems and communication processes.

In the case of Toowong Shire Council, a review of Council's plan assisted in identifying and addressing important gaps in knowledge. The new plan incorporated actions on how to better manage identified risks in the future and suggested opportunities to improve the planning and management of onsite wastewater systems.

Mapping has also been undertaken to identify systems across the Shire that are in poor condition, noting the areas with higher concentration of these systems and those in closer proximity to waterways.

In the case of Knox City Council, similar review of the 2015 OWMP resulted in the identification of new actions and these include geospatial mapping of properties with onsite wastewater systems, undertaking an audit of councils electronic management systems and developing supporting assessment documents and processes.

So for our second vignette, Tarun Kanda, Environmental Health Officer from Central Goldfield Shire Council will present on the activities the Council is undertaking in order to implement their OWMP.

Tarun Kanda (Central Goldfield Shire Council): Thank you Caroline. Central Goldfield Shire Council recognised the requirement to develop a new domestic wastewater Management plan in 2021.

As our previous plan was quite old and hadn't been updated for quite a long time. Council did approve the funding for the actual development of the wastewater management plan, but we were then struggling to find resources and funding to implement the key recommendations of this plan.

So with the funding that received from DEECA, we got a massive head start to get things rolling for these initial key recommendations and actions.

The first action that we implemented was surveillance of legacy systems in unsewered towns such as Talbot.

We have been successful in acquiring the services of a highly skilled, highly professional, highly experienced environmental health officer who is currently conducting surveillance of legacy systems in Talbot.

Talbot is a historic mining town which does not have access to reticulated sewer even though it has a substantial population. The key issues in Talbot are old split legacy systems and disposal of grey water to storm water drains.

The data that we are going to collect through these inspections and surveillance will not only help us achieve our statutory requirements but will also help us develop a strong business case for proposal of reticulated sewer for Talbot.

The next key action plan that we delivered was education for our residents. We had developed targeted education resources for our current and future residents and we have also updated our website which now provides all the resources in one place.

We also recognise that they were gaps in our knowledge and in our resources which we use to enforce compliance. So we have developed compliance tools and we have also achieved collaboration between the planning, building, local laws and environment health department.

The next slide that you will see here shows the combined risk map for Central Goldfields Shire Council, which includes issues with soil waterways, population density, density of wastewater management systems, projected future expansion and risk to our natural and protective resources.

Overall, the resources that we've received from DEECA have given us a massive head start in implementation of our key recommendations and all the data and all the knowledge that we are going to acquire in the coming months will help us deliver better services, improved services to our residents.

Thank you.

Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Tarun, for that comprehensive overview of the project.

So some more examples of recent grant projects focused on implementing a plan are also provided here today.

Golden Plains Shire Council is currently awaiting approval of its updated OWMP and it's been successful in securing internal funding to employ an officer to support the implementation of actions. This includes inspection of 100 historical on site wastewater systems per year and the updating of online materials and communications.

Wyndham City Council reviewed their onsite wastewater management database and undertook spatial mapping of systems as part of the review and development of a new plan, and they have been successful in securing internal funding to implement further data management improvements and to support additional actions.

In the case of Macedon Ranges Shire Council, their work to audit and review their OWMP has similarly enabled internal funding to implement the findings of the audit, rewrite their plan and implement an inspection programme in special water supply catchment areas.

So we'll now hear from Leila Anstice, Environmental Health Coordinator at Macedon Ranges Shire Council, who will give a short presentation about their involvement with the development and trialling of the OWMP review tool.

Leila Anstice (Macedon Ranges Shire Council): Good morning all. I'm Leila and here to talk about my Council's involvement in developing the Onsite Wastewater Management Plan review tool. I'll also be talking on behalf of Moorabool Shire.

I collaborated with Faye from Moorabool to develop these slides, and both of our councils were involved in developing this standardised tool to review our domestic wastewater management plans. I should say onsite wastewater management plans now.

So compliance with the OMLI is mandatory and the OMLI sets the requirements for on site wastewater management plans, including the requirements to review on site wastewater management plans within five years and also update our plans.

The project itself aimed to develop a standard tool, to develop a tool to review on site wastewater management plans to ensure they're developed per the OMLI requirements and also properly implemented.

Moorabool was due for a review of its plan and Macedon Ranges had already undergone an audit of our plan. However, the audit was conducted prior to the OMLI and all the new guidelines coming in. The project identified opportunities for improvement rather than focusing on just compliance, though. So we have a workable document that we can work through all the actions to implement.

James, the consultant who developed the tool, reviewed both Moorabool and Macedon's – he's a third party, however, the tool can be used internally as well. He visited Moorabool in-person for a day and went through their on-site wastewater management plan and all their processes and procedures. He conducted our review over Teams and emails. And both approaches worked well.

A key learning were that both of the plans, both Macedon and Moorabool's, require thorough assessment to identify hazards and risks that can cause harm to people and the environment, as well as controls to and actions to mitigate those risks.

Also Moorabool's and Macedon's have a number of opportunities for improvements to align both of our plans to the OMLI because they were written prior to the OMLI being developed. Also both plans need more work undertaken to measure cumulative risk which is an only requirement as well.

Macedon also needs more help in identifying the risks associated with existing onsite wastewater management systems because we don't have an ongoing inspection programme once systems are installed. So Macedon Ranges' score was quite low because of this.

We presented the results of our first audit and this review to exec and Council, and we were successful in obtaining funding to completely rewrite our plan as it's in its fifth year as well as looking at funding a position or someone to help us with the ongoing inspection programmes of existing systems.

Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Leila for that comprehensive overview.

Now, given the requirement to consult with relevant stakeholders under Clause 612 of the OMLI, we have included some examples of collaboration undertaken by various councils as part of these recent grant projects.

This requirement includes consultation about the plan and, where relevant, consideration of costs, timelines and prioritisation of actions proposed.

Collaboration, coordination and sharing of information across multiple local governments and water corporations is important as it ensures consistency in our approach to communications, data management and monitoring and it will provide the best outcomes for effective on site domestic wastewater management.

Colac Otway Shire Council collaborated with Barwon Water and Wannon Water in the delivery of their risk assessment improvement project, so that's one good example in that space.

Greater Bendigo City Council similarly worked closely with Coliban Water to educate the community about different on site wastewater management options.

South Gippsland Shire Council has developed and implemented an environmental water sampling program in collaboration with South Gippsland Water.

Moorabool Shire has similarly collaborated with Greater Western Water, Barwon Water and Central Highlands Water to develop a testing regime for onsite wastewater systems.

There have been a number of collaborations specifically focused on data improvement. Those include those led by Cardinia Shire, Wodonga City Council and Whittlesea City Council. In these cases, councils work closely with the relevant water corporations to support the development of consistent data sets.

So we've now come to the end of part one of the webinar, which has highlighted a range of projects that demonstrate work undertaken by councils to be better placed with OMLI obligations.

It's also highlighted a number of examples of collaboration which address an important obligation under the OMLI to consult with relevant stakeholders.

Now we have about 5 minutes for questions before we take a short break if there are any.

If you haven't had an opportunity yet to pose any questions, please do so now and we will then move after the break to Part 2, which will focus on new tools and approaches to improve risk management and onsite domestic wastewater management.

Page last updated: 05/08/24