EPA Victoria issued a Cleanup Notice for a confidential client, requiring the site owner to prepare a Clean Up Plan (CUP) for the site and conduct an Environmental Audit under the Environment Protection Act.
Following the issuing of the Cleanup Notice, the site owner completed a Preliminary Site Investigation (PSI), Detailed Site Investigation (DSI), Cleanup Plan (CUP) Addendum focused on addressing PFAS impacts at the site.
EHS Support is currently undertaking the Environmental Audit at the site, including verification of the remediation works. Key contributions to the auditing work included:
- Work plan review. Conducted a review of the site assessor’s work plans for investigation works, as prepared by the site assessor
- Report analysis. Reviewed reports from the site assessor including the PSI, DSI, Sampling and Analysis Quality Plan (SAQP), Conceptual Site Model (CSM), Environment Management Plans (EMPs), Remediation Action Plans (RAPs), catchment water balance modelling including the review of the Hydraulic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model, CUP, CUP Addendum. EHS Support has worked with the site assessor to detail the appropriate input parameters to the HELP model and the sensitivity analysis required to provide confidence in the model outputs. The focus of the water balance review was to determine the sources of PFAS (i.e. including offsite contributors) within the catchment likely to be contributing to the PFAS in the surface water bodies, determine the likely site contribution of PFAS to the surface water bodies, identify the contributions from other off-site sources, and assess potential impacts to biological receptors from PFAS exposure
- Risk assessment review. Evaluated the Risk Assessment concerning the CSM and analysed the human health and ecological receptors that might be exposed to PFAS downstream of the site
- Documentation of findings. Recorded review comments into the Audit Issues Register, including tracking responses from the site assessor.
- Provided input and reviewed the Environmental Auditor Verification reports
- Engaged with stakeholders for the site by participating in meetings. All the prepared documentation was done in consultation with the appointed Auditor