At the end of October 2016, the southeastern Australian state of New South Wales (Capital – Sydney) released a draft consultation paper, Clean Air for NSW, which focuses on improving air quality across NSW between 2017 and 2027, according to a November 10, 2016 Mondaq News report.

The Paper proposes significant regulatory changes across a wide range of industries, as well as changes to the way in which the Government assesses and responds to air pollution incidents.

The extensive reach of the Paper’s proposals, and the possibility of important regulatory changes, mean that industry participants should review the Paper and consider making a submission.
Broad coverage

The Paper aims to address air quality issues across a broad spectrum of air pollutants, including particles (primarily PM10 and PM2.5), ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and lead.

It is based on assessments of air quality across several key areas of NSW, including the Sydney metropolitan area, the Upper and Lower Hunter Valley, the Central Coast, the Illawarra and rural NSW.
Priority actions

The Paper outlines a series of actions covering many key industries in NSW. Some key actions are outlined below:

• Mining: The Paper proposes to strengthen mining rehabilitation controls, including via changes to standard mining lease conditions, with a focus on final land-use. The proposal include a mandatory rehabilitation code of practice.
• Energy generation: The Paper outlines a project to strengthen air emission controls for power stations, especially coal-fire stations, based on a review of international best practice controls.
• Hunter rail: Strategies for minimising dust exposure in the Hunter Valley rail corridor are proposed in the Paper.
• Diesel emissions for stationary sources and rail: The paper proposes some possible actions to reduce diesel emissions from the construction and infrastructure sectors, extractive industries and waste management facilities. We expect this to be high priority, given the comment in the Paper that about 96% of all non-road diesel emissions in the greater Sydney metropolitan area come from industrial on-road vehicles and equipment, locomotives and shipping combined.
• Petrol stations: The Paper proposes further consideration of the use of vapour recovery equipment NSW, for sources such as vapour escaping from petrol stations.
• Roads: One of the Paper’s proposals is to pursue air quality by encouraging cleaner vehicles (eg. electric and hybrid vehicles), reducing road congestions (NorthConnex and Westconnex are cited as example projects here) and increased use of public transport and “active transport (eg. cycling and walking).

What this means to you
The New South Wales state of Australia (Capital – Sydney) released a draft consultation paper, Clean Air for NSW, which focuses on improving air quality across NSW between 2017 and 2027.

MIRATECH can help
Contact MIRATECH to learn more about emission solutions for engines in your operation.