New EPA Laws That Affect Environmental Noise Assessments

On the 1 July 2021, new laws gave the Victorian Environment Protection Authority (EPA) increased powers to prevent harm to public health and the environment from pollution and waste. Importantly, The General Environmental Duty (GED), a centrepiece of the new laws, is criminally enforceable.

Environmental Noise Assessments (ENAs) were previously bound by the State Environmental Protection Policy (SEPP) No. N-1 (Commercial, Industry and Trade within Metropolitan Melbourne and regional urban hubs), No. N-2 (Music venues), and NIRV (Noise from Industry in Regional Victoria).

In July 2021, EPA Victoria released Publication 1826.4 – Noise limit and assessment protocol for the control of noise from commercial, industrial and trade premises and entertainment venues. This document is commonly called the Noise Protocol.

In addition to the release of the Noise Protocol, the EPA Regulations 2021 were released with Part 5.3 – Noise of the regulations used in conjunction with the Noise Protocol for conducting ENAs. 

The Environment Protection Act 2017 came into effect on 1 July 2021 with the General Environmental Duty (GED) at the centre of the Act. It means that if you are conducting activities that pose a risk to human health and the environment, that risk must be understood. 

Importantly reasonable and practicable steps to eliminate or minimise those risks can be legally enforced, regardless of whether compliance with applicable noise limits has been determined. In an Australian first, the GED is criminally enforceable.

Regulations That Have Changed

The following are now obsolete:

• SEPP N-2 (music venues)
• SEPP N-1 (Commercial, Industry and Trade)
• NIRV (Regional Commercial, Industry and Trade)

And have been superseded by:

• Noise Protocol
  • Part I of the Noise Protocol supersedes SEPP N-1 and NIRV
  • Part II  of the Noise Protocol supersedes SEPP N-2

The Environment Protection Act 2017, EPA Regulations 2021 and GED mean that the EPA can enforce actions to minimise noise regardless if the sites are at compliant noise levels or not.

Key Points

For most sites, ENAs will remain the same or similar. However, there are some changes you need to be aware of: 

Music Venues

• Operations per week no longer taken into consideration for music venue classification of day/evening and night time periods.
• Formalisation of Agent of Change into the Noise Protocol. This assigns responsibility for noise attenuation measures to the ‘agent of change’  i.e. who is introducing a change to the local noise environment, whether that is a music venue or a residential development. 

Commercial, Industry and Trade Premises

• Expansion, and further clarification, on what counts as emergency equipment
• Removal of major and minor premises distinction for how detailed assessment methods are required to be
• Tonality calculations objective method changes slightly to result in either a +2 or +5 dB adjustment instead of a sliding scale between +0.1 to +10.0
• Change of the evening time period on Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm, to 6pm to 10pm. Putting it in line with weekday evening time periods.
• Noise Sensitive Areas has been updated to explicitly include childcare centres, kindergartens, primary and secondary schools and tourist establishments, camping grounds and caravan parks in rural areas.
• A further clarification on what is or what may be an Urban Hub within rural areas when determining what kind of assessment is to be carried out

What Does This Mean For You?

For most of you, things will remain the same and ENAs conducted prior to July 2021 will still remain valid. However, for some of you, further work may be required to bring your ENA up to current conditions. 
The need for follow up assessments will primarily be due to one of 2 reasons:

1. Your site is impacted by the changes above
2. Your site, although compliant, can still reduce noise further if reasonable and practicable steps to eliminate or minimise those risks to the community are based on the GED