Changes To South Australia´s “Environment Protection Act 1993” And The New “Irrigation Act 2009” (SA)

Review Of Environmental Impact Assessment Process

The WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has released its 'Review of the Environmental Impact Assessment Process in Western Australia' which contains recommendations for the reform of the State's impact assessment processes. The key recommendations of the review are as follows:

• Imposition of a risk-based approach to environmental impact assessment.
• Increased parallel processing with other assessment and approval processes to improve timeliness.
• Reduction in the levels of assessment from five to two to simplify the assessment process.
• Revision of memorandums of understanding with other government agencies to adopt a risk-based approach to determining the activities that require referral to the EPA.