[On-screen text: Onsite Domestic Wastewater Management Information Webinar]
[On screen text: Part 2: Risk management activities]
[On-screen text: 24 June 2024]
Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): OK, welcome back everyone. We're going to start with Part 2 of the webinar. For those that have just joined us, welcome.
This part of the webinar follows Part 1 which focused on planning and regulatory requirements relating to onsite domestic wastewater management.
The purpose of Part 2 is to demonstrate several tools and resources that we've already highlighted today that are being developed and also to showcase examples of risk management actions being undertaken by local government.
This session is being recorded and will be made available on the DEECA website after the session.
So we'll commence Part 2 with a brief overview of the key mechanisms, tools and resources supporting risk mitigation and onsite wastewater management.
This will include an overview of the types of activities that can be undertaken as actions in your onsite wastewater management plans.
Again, we will showcase relevant projects delivered through DEECA's grant program, through a series of vignettes that highlight different approaches to risk reduction and demonstrate the application of various tools and resources.
The showcase comprises 3 grant projects that address different risk reduction activities including process improvement, capacity building, and inspection and monitoring.
This will be followed by an overview of tools and development, including the DEECA OWMP review tool.
And again, we will wrap up with a brief interactive Q&A session with panellists comprising today's presenters and guest speakers, members of DEECA. As before, please post your questions using the Q&A function. Please feel free to use it in an interactive fashion as well.
If your question relates to a guest speaker, nominate your speaker and we will review and prioritise those questions and any that we cannot respond to, we will respond to later through an FAQ document.
So in Part 1, we discussed the planning and regulatory context, including the OMLI or the Obligations for Managers of Land and Infrastructure that was established under the Environment Protection Act.
One of the obligations under the OMLI is to develop an onsite wastewater management plan.
The OWMP will help councils to manage onsite wastewater at a municipal level through understanding the risks from onsite wastewater systems, determining approaches to achieve compliance and undertaking actions to manage the risks from onsite wastewater management.
So Part 2 demonstrates risk management actions that are an important part of the OWMP.
Actions to mitigate risk can include developing and implementing programs targeting onsite wastewater system inspection, community or practitioner education, compliance and enforcement, environmental monitoring, and improving knowledge of onsite wastewater systems data and risk ratings.
Part 2 also presents tools that are being developed that can assist councils, and these are the OWMP Guidelines and supplementary Risk Assessment Guidelines to support councils with planned development; the Sewer Connection marketing materials, to assist councils with promoting connection to sewer where it's available; and the OWMP Review tool, which has been designed to support continuous improvements when reviewing an OWMP.
And we're going to profile these last 2 resources shortly.
We're going to showcase now some examples of approaches taken by councils to mitigate risk through these risk reduction activities.
We have 3 vignettes. On the topic of process improvement, Frankston City Council will discuss their experience in improving council processes including OWMS complaint tracking and management.
On the topic of building capacity, Yarra Ranges Shire Council will provide an overview of their experience in collaborating in the development of promotional video and educational materials to support sewer connection and in the upskilling of council staff.
And on the topic of inspections and monitoring, Wodonga City Council will discuss how the risk assessment and geospatial mapping of onsite wastewater management systems has helped improve desktop assessments, inform inspection frequency, and better align with North East Water data sets.
So the vignettes are recorded and our guest speakers are present today and will be available at the end to answer questions.
In our first vignette, Christian Martinu, Environmental Health Coordinator at Frankston City Council, provides an overview of their project which aimed to improve their internal processes across all areas of council.
Christian Martinu (Frankston City Council): Frankston City Council opted to go for an onsite domestic wastewater management data improvement project.
This allowed us to improve our onsite wastewater management activities and strengthen the processes within council.
This addressed gaps and the capability across multiple teams.
We were then also given the opportunity to address inadequate maintenance of systems with owners, both existing and new owners, by providing them more education and communicating with the property owners.
Another opportunity was for the delivery of professional development to EHOs.
We were able to upskill and increase knowledge of the EHOs, both in assessments and inspections and also processing applications.
The key learnings that we had were we were able to create a link between the customer request system and also our permit and licencing database.
This allowed Council to be transparent, effective and more accountable when we track an action, requests, complaints and address inadequate maintenance and effective systems.
We were then able to update our resources and strengthen our processes between teams, between rights, information technology, prosecutions, planning, planning investigations.
We were also able to create a new database of all onsite wastewater management systems on Council's database. That way we have accurate records to communicate with all owners.
And lastly, we were able to increase efficiencies and reduce duplication of administrative work by having one source of truth.
We store all documentation in one database rather than splitting it up across the internal databases.
A great opportunity was also to communicate with the service technicians and maintenance businesses.
We were able to then prioritise defective notices, so EHO allocation of work is more efficient and we use our resources in the best possible way.
A key consideration in delivering a similar improvement project would be the allocation of EHOs to run with the project.
It may be one day a week over a certain period of time, and also it'll be the time to apply and create the final report.
Thank you.
Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Christian.
In our second vignette, Chrissie Dalgleish, Public and Environmental Health Coordinator at Yarra Ranges Shire Council, will outline the development of an education programme to encourage residents to connect to sewer where it's available.
Chrissie Dalgleish (Yarra Ranges Shire Council): Yarra Ranges Council and Yarra Valley Water, with support from DEECA and a $20,000 grant, joined forces to improve wastewater practises across the Yarra Ranges Council.
The grant encouraged us to work together and understand customer expectations and limitations when managing wastewater on site or by connecting to sewer.
We created a working group inviting two other neighbouring councils, DEECA and EPA, to explore other collaborative opportunities further supporting the Connection to Sewer programme.
We hope to reconnect this group within the next couple of months.
We also produced a small promotional and educational video which can and has been adopted by other councils within the Yarra Valley Water catchment area.
Please enjoy a preview of this video.
[Yarra Valley Water video plays back, with narrator]
Do you have a septic tank system?
Did you know that old or failing septic tank systems can leak untreated wastewater into neighbouring yards and waterways?
Thankfully, being connected to sewerage solves this issue and can save you money in the long term while helping preserve our beautiful local environment.
The Environment Protection Act states that we all have a duty to look after and protect our natural environment from pollution and waste.
Connecting your property to sewerage can give you peace of mind in removing the personal responsibilities that come with having a septic system, such as ensuring it is working properly and paying for a licenced plummet to service and maintain it.
Council and Yarra Valley Water are working together to support the delivery of the Community Sewerage Programme to connect more people to sewerage and help protect our local waterways.
To find out more on how to connect your property to sewerage, visit yvw.com.au/CSP or call 9872 2551.
[Yarra Valley Water video playback ends]
Chrissie Dalgleish (Yarra Ranges Shire Council): If you would like a copy of this video and you would like to obtain this video and use its positive resource for your council, please contact Yarra Valley Water.
Overall, the key learnings from this project and from the grant were to work together to deliver practical materials with strong consistent messaging.
We also were able to upskill EHOs with their knowledge around wastewater management, and connected heavily with the Yarra Valley Water to make sure our language was consistent.
Thank you.
Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Chrissie.
Here are some more examples of recent projects focused on the development of materials to build capacity for understanding various aspects to deal with onsite wastewater management.
Casey City Council has developed guidance to support contractors to improve the quality of data entered into the wastewater model of their onsite wastewater management database.
Hindmarsh has developed 10 information sheets to support residents and property owners with onsite wastewater management. These sheets cover a range of topics including an overview of different on site wastewater management systems, common disposal methods, key considerations and decommissioning systems, amongst others.
Maroondah City Council developed a combined education and inspection program which has allowed council to educate home owners on their onsite wastewater systems and ways to better maintain them. They've developed survey form material to support these visits and have conducted 97 educational visits and 145 system inspections as part of the project.
We will now hear from Hayley Carmichael, Environmental Health Team Leader at Wodonga City Council, who will present on Wodonga's project that focused on the inspection and monitoring of actions undertaken in order to reduce the risks as identified in their OWMP.
Hayley Carmichael (Wodonga City Council): Hi, I'm presenting on our inspection and monitoring project that we undertook, and this was to do with risk assessments and GIS of our onsite domestic wastewater management system.
We decided to apply for this project and grant because in the past we had outsourced our monitoring to a third party and we had had issues with that.
And when we brought it back in house, we wanted to make sure that we were undertaking some sort of risk assessment to make sure that we were getting the best value for time and resourcing that we had available.
So currently Wodonga has 763 systems recorded on our council database and as part of this project we undertook 745 onsite wastewater management system GPS data recording, and we had that link to our Intramap system.
And we also undertook 579 risk assessments.
This included inspections and desktop assessments of systems so that we could classify systems based on their risk and that would drive the inspection frequency that we had for those systems.
So as part of this, we've been able to create data that's more accurate. We were able to clean up a lot of historic data, data that had been sitting there potentially for subdivisions or no longer existed on sites.
We were also able to identify desktop non compliances that might have occurred over time.
And as part of that, we've got a mapping system that shows us data from 2010 to current time. So we now have the ability to attract those non compliances.
As part of this program, though, we no longer have set inspections every 3 years.
So we know we're going to have busier and quieter periods of time; and we've accommodated for that by in our quieter times, being able to undertake proactive education or monitoring or compliance activities.
And this year we're focusing on AWTS reports and also commencing discussions with North East Water about some of our high risk areas.
So as part of this project, we've been able to plot our GPS data and that has meant that in real time we can get more accurate data to provide advice to properties.
[Image on screen showing a property at 2012, and then the same property showing development – including a new dam – by 2024]
So for an example here in 2012, we have a system that's been installed. In 2023, they want to undertake a renovation and then we uncover that they've installed a dam.
They don't have the capacity now to be able to meet setbacks for their system.
And so we're able to provide that advice to them from the desktop and we're able to talk to them about what their options are.
And in this case they went with a AWTS system.
The other picture we've got on this slide is about our risk assessment profile that we have and that looks at number of occupants, age of the system, proximity to water course, whether it's part of a special water supply catchment, time since maintenance or desludge, the size of the property and any known issues.
And we're able to then classify all of the systems based on this, and that then drives the inspection frequency for them.
For premises that we've got non compliances on, we will create a risk rating and then once they have addressed those concerns, we're able to risk assess again.
And that might mean that their risk rating changes and we don't have to see them as often.
This means that we can really target those high risk areas or places where further enforcement or education is required.
Thank you very much.
Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, Hayley.
So we'll now provide a more detailed overview of the OWMP review tool that's currently in development.
James Howey from Viridis Consultants will give an outline of the tool and explain how it has been developed and tested to date, including next steps.
James Howey (Viridis Consultants): It's important that OWMPs are reviewed regularly as it ensures currency of the plan.
As with all risk management plans, they need to be updated from time to time as risks might have changed since the plan was last reviewed.
In this review, we're not actually updating the plan itself, but checking to see that the risks identified are current and the plan is appropriate to manage those risks.
Action plans are a large component of OWMPs; implementation of the actions, and how effective the plan has been as a whole, is assessed.
The review helps to communicate to both internal and external stakeholders regarding OWMP performance and implementation, provides confidence in the plan but also a means of communicating alike resources, for instance to stakeholders including managers, councillors, water corporations, ratepayers etc.
It demonstrates conformance with the OMLI.
And now on the right we've got a radar chart. This is part of the assessment tool.
The methodology we've developed aims to improve councils' OWMPs, rather than just identify compliance or non compliance with the OMLI.
We've developed maturity levels from zero through 4.
On the chart you can see average grades for 7 areas.
Grades have been aggregated for criteria with common themes: commitment to the plan, risk, action plans, compliance and enforcement, consultation, referrals and review.
By aggregating these results into these areas, we can see where the greatest improvement is needed.
Review Tool puts the development methodology into an easy to follow structure to help with consistency between reviews.
Now I've cut some bits out of the tool so we can have a look.
These are the grades as mentioned, they're from zero to 4, with a descriptor and a definition.
There's also a supporting flow chart, which helps you to decide upon those grades to aid in consistency.
Now here we've got the assessment page.
Starting on the left, we've got the source of each of the criteria and the criteria itself.
Then we've got a detailed description on what that criteria is, which helps quite a lot when making those decisions of what grade to assign.
Then the reviewer will document the findings and the evidence that's been considered and then put in a grade.
Now if that grade is less than 3, which is a level we've deemed to conform with the assessment criteria, there must be an opportunity for improvement in the right hand side column.
And finally, there's a summary page. It has a radar chart that we've already seen. It also has a summary of findings within each of those review areas.
This page also includes a conclusion box at the bottom which of you can consolidate their findings.
You've got a very high level project summary. We're currently on stage 2.
We're getting someone who hasn't been involved with the project so far to undertake 4 reviews - whereas in stage 1, I undertook those reviews myself.
So stage 2 is a test to see if we can get consistency in using the tool with someone who's picking it up for the first time.
Thank you.
Caroline Chandler (E2 Design Lab): Thank you, James.
So other tools in development that we've already referred to include the development of the broader switch to sewer marketing materials, which build on the work undertaken by Yarra Ranges Council and Yarra Valley Water.
Yarra Valley Water undertook analysis of marketing methods to promote the switch to sewer and this included the development of the generic video that you've seen today.
And this aims to provide broader generic marketing materials to support councils in future endeavours, particularly if they're unable to do any work on this at the present time.
The OWMP guidelines and supplementary risk assessment guidelines as we've discussed replace the MAV's domestic wastewater management plan model.
The risk assessment guidelines in particular has incorporated feedback from 2 OWMP grant projects that were trialling a cumulative risk assessment framework developed by Atom Consulting in 2022, and issues identified through the trial were resolved as part of the final cumulative risk assessment framework and incorporated into EPA's onsite wastewater management plans risk assessment guideline.
So Part 2 has highlighted some excellent examples of how to undertake risk reduction as part of an OWMP, with some showcase examples applying those new tools and resources.
As Helen mentioned earlier, the OWMP review tool and sewer connection package will be made available on the DEECA website once it's finalised in July.
The OWMP guidelines and supplementary risk assessment guidelines will be made available on the EPA website once finalised later in the year.
So we really encourage you to reach out to other councils to share information, including those examples that we've profiled today, particularly if you're interested in undertaking a similar activity in your council area.
All councils have different needs, they're progressing action in different ways and somewhere someone's going to be facing similar challenges to you.
We also encourage coordination and sharing of information across local government and water corporation boundaries.
This consistency in our approach to data management and monitoring is really going to provide the best outcomes for effective onsite wastewater management.
Page last updated: 05/08/24