EPA is coming to your town - Open House 2011

EPA is developing a strategic plan to document our priorities for protecting the environment over the next 5 years.

We've asked our staff what they think, so now it's your turn to tell us what you think the EPA should be focusing on over the next 5 years.

Protecting Everyone's Environment (Environmental Justice)

The US EPA defines environmental justice to be:

... achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decisionmaking process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn and work.

Environmental justice means that everybody should have access to clean air and a safe environment, regardless of where they live.

Changing towns and cities

Much of EPA's current work results from inconsistent town planning and incompatible siting of industry and residents.Towns and cities will continue to change as Victoria's population grows. Industry will also change as new products and processes are developed. EPA is aware that these changes pose a range of known and unknown problems.

We know that we will need to:

• partner more closely with local government and other agencies to ensure past planning problems do not reoccur
• strengthen adherence to EPA's guidelines for the appropriate siting of industry
• support new technology that improves waste and emissions treatment, energy saving or reduction in transport use
• continue to educate the community and raise its expectations for environmental performance

Consumption

We all affect the environment in some way as producers or consumers of goods and services.

For Victorians, increasing consumption may mean:

• more manufacturing, therefore more industries
• more transporting of goods
• more waste to be dealt with by landfill, recycling or reuse
• more energy and water use.

Pollution

Victoria has a system of licensing and monitoring waste and emissions from industrial sites – Point-Source Pollution. Managing and responding to point source pollution has been centre of EPA's work over the last 40 years.

An emerging priority is now the combined pollution caused by many sources – Diffuse-Source Pollution. Diffuse-Source pollution arises from many sources without necessarily having obvious discharge points, making it difficult to regulate. Some of this pollution is deliberate (for example, littering), but most is a product of day-to-day living and working (such as mowing the lawn).