Paradigm shift in water environment protection in New South Wales

Abstract

Water quality has a major bearing on human activities, including domestic, irrigation and industrial water supply, commercial fishing, recreation, and tourism. Implementation of the “polluter pays principle (PpP)” through the “load-based-licensing (LBL)” regulatory instrument encourages prevention and reduction of pollution through the financial incentive of lower pollutant fees. It takes into account production capacity, quality of process technology and load of pollutants, their harmfulness, and the sensitivity of the receiving environment where the pollutants are released from wastewater-generating facilities. LBL harnesses the power of the “market” so that the most cost-effective pollution reduction methods are used to achieve positive environmental outcomes, and endeavours to shift (internalise) external pollution costs from society to the polluters. It uses pollutant “load” as the basic unit of measure, which caters for protection against acute, chronic and cumulative environmental impact, rather than “pollutants concentration”, which provides protection only against acute impact. LBL could be applied for managing every kind of environmental pollution, such as land, air and water. The introduction of emission taxes (pollutant load fees) under LBL, has also promoted a cultural change where pollution reduction becomes an operational cost factor rather than merely ensuring minimum regulatory compliance.