Pollution Monitoring

Introduction

While Orange City Council is committed to managing waste responsibly, the Council is also required by legislation to publicly report on potential pollution from six sites around Orange.

A number of sites operated by Orange City Council are required to have Environmental Protection Licences (EPL) which are administered by the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997. An EPL allows a business to operate as long as it adheres to certain conditions which are stipulated in each licence.

Orange City Council holds six Environmental Protection Licences as listed below. Click on the EPL number to follow a link to the full licence on the EPAs website.

EPL NUMBER	NAME
1646	Orange Sewage Treatment System
3686	Spring Hill Sewage Treatment Plant
5762	Phillip Street Quarry
5956	Ophir Road Resource Recovery Centre
10263	Suma Park Dam - Spring Creek Dam
20104	Euchareena Road Resource Recovery Centre

Reporting

Recent changes have been made to the legislation through the Protection of the Environment Legislation Amendment Act 2011. As a result of these changes, it is compulsory for licensees to publish pollution monitoring data that is required to be collected as a condition of their licence. This applies to data obtained after 31 March 2012 as per Requirements for Publishing Pollution Monitoring Data (EPA March 2012).

How often sites are sampled varies for each site depending on the activity being undertaken and the requirements of the conditional licence for pollution monitoring. Not all licences require pollution monitoring as part of the conditional licence. Links to the City Council’s pollution monitoring data can be found below.

Some EPA monitoring points don’t require pollution monitoring but are for other parameters, such as volumetric flows. Where concentration limits are included in the licence these have been included in the data tables for the pollution monitoring results.

Orange Sewage Treatment Plant

The Orange Sewage Treatment plant services the city of Orange treating approximately 11 megalitres (ML) of sewage per day. Sewage is mostly composed of household (or domestic) waste. Other wastewater that is treated at the plant includes trade waste discharge such as waste from restaurants and mechanical workshops.

Sewage at this plant is treated to a tertiary level with some of the final effluent being discharged to the creek. The licence is required at this site because of this discharge to the creek and is sampled monthly for potential pollutants. Two more locations at this site are also monitored for pollution, although this is only required annually.

Download the most recent Orange STP pollution monitoring results here.

 EPL 1646 Results Orange STP - April 2013 [222 KB]

To view a map of EPA monitoring locations for Orange Sewage Treatment Plant click on the image at left.

 

 

Spring Hill Sewage Treatment Plant

The Spring Hill Sewage treatment plant services the villages of Spring Hill and Lucknow. This is a much smaller plant than Orange and consists of a series of ponds with extended aeration. Due to the smaller population, the Spring Hill plant treats about 70 kilolitres per day (kL/d).

As per EPL 3686, final effluent is required to be monitored monthly. Final effluent has been used for irrigation purposes on nearby land. Soil and groundwater samples are collected every six months.

Dowload the most recent Spring Hill STP pollution monitoring results here.

EPL 3686 Spring Hill WWTP - April 2013 [226KB]

To view a map of EPA monitoring locations for Spring Hill STP, click on the image at right

Phillip Street Quarry

The Phillip Street Quarry is a source of high quality hard rock suitible to produce various grades of aggregates for use throughout Orange. The quarry is located to the north east of the city near to Blackmans Swamp Creek.

The requirments for monitoring this site as per EPL 5762 are different to the two sewage treatment plants. Pollution monitoring is required if there is an overflow event. There have been very few overflow events in recent times.

Download the most recent Phillip Street Quarry pollution monitoring results here.
 

 ELP 5762 Results Phillip Street Quarry - April 2013 ( 194 K )

Resource Recovery Centres

The Ophir Road Resource Recovery Centre (Licence No. 5956) is located 5km North East of the Orange City CBD and is the primary receiving point for all wastes generated within the City and surrounding areas. Recyclables are processed through the Material Recovery Facility for Orange, Cabonne, Parkes, Forbes, Blayney and Bathurst Regional Council while waste is either directly deposited to the landfill or pre-processed through a proposed Waste Baling and Organics building.

The Euchareena Road Resource Recovery Centre (Licence No.20104) is located 5 km North East from Molong and, once completed, will receive either baled and wrapped residual waste and inert construction & demolition waste which is landfilled. It will also receive food and garden organics from the domestic kerbside collection which will be then processed through a tunnel composting facility collocated on the site and managed by Councils contractor J R Richards & Sons.

Both Resource Recovery Centre sites are required to be monitored in accordance with their licence conditions and reported to the EPA in an Annual Return.

Download the most recent Ophir Road RRC pollution monitoring results ORRRC Pollution Monitoring Results to September 2012.

Download a map of EPA monitoring locations for Ophir Road RRC here. ORRRC Monitoring Points Map

The Euchareena Road Resource Recovery Centre pollution monitoring results ERRRC Air Quality Monitoring 5 November 2012 - 6 December 2012

The Euchareena Road Resource Recovery Centre groundwater monitoring results ERRRC Groundwater Monitoring 3 Feb 2013

Download a map of EPA monitoring locations for Euchareena Road Resource Recovery Centre here.  ERRRC Monitoring Points Map

Suma Park Dam and Spring Creek Dam

This licence for this site relates to possible algacide application in either Suma Park Dam or Spring Creek Dam to control the growth of blue-green algae.

Orange City Council has not needed to use algacide for a number of years with improvements made to infrastructure and operations.

Although annual reporting to the EPA is still required, there is no requirement for pollution monitoring from these locations for EPL 10263.
 

 

Pollution Incidents

In the event of a pollution incident, Orange City Council is required to work in line with a management plan which outlines how to deal with the community and other stakeholders.

You can download the  Pollution Incident Response Management Plan (329 K) here.