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Water Legislation in Victoria

Angela Forero
Mar 1, 2013
3 min read

To star approaching the Water Legislation in Victoria, it is important to know its legislative background. The Victoria Policies are based on Environmental Protection Act 1970. The policies are set to satisfy and meet community needs and expectations.

Water is a natural resource. It is involved in a large range of human activities, from simple actions such as drinking water from the tap, to complex processes of waste water treatments in communities through sewage systems. All the benefits that we receive every day from water are aimed to be protected; besides this, what is exactly those beneficial uses we are talking about?

Beneficial Uses

There are many beneficial uses that include drinking water, industrial use, sanitation, ecosystem support and so on, provided by a water body or waterway. Protecting the beneficial uses will guarantee the well-being of the communities, organisations and industries. It is necessary to implement different strategies such as maintenance of a proper quality and also through constant improvements.

Beneficial uses also include all those uses that communities need or want to protect for the present or the future generations. Unfortunately no all the beneficial uses are protected in all water environments. The challenge is to continue working towards protecting those uses that haven’t been.

To give an example of this, if there was an important ecosystem for fishing and recreation that is supported by a water body that is on plans to become a pumping station for supply of a community, is crucial to examine the beneficial use of both community and aquatic in order to protect both beneficial uses and guarantee their supply.

There is a way to identify and protect the potential beneficial uses, they are called “Environmental Objectives”, we will be analysing their importance and the methodology used to prioritise them.

Environmental Quality Objectives

It is necessary that all surfaces of water and also their ecosystems have a quality level that does not pose a risk to beneficial uses, this includes being free of any substances.An inadequate quality level can be seen when is observed human health impacts, the increased occurrence of aquatic species kills, sedimentation, and excessive growth of aquatic plants due to nitrification, objectionable odours, and visible floating material.

The environmental quality objectives are set out to identify the potential uses. Once it is been recognised the need of being protected some means can be used to do so are:

Water Quality: It could be described by the concentration of different substances, components, elements or chemicals of interest. Water Quality depends on the purpose of the assessment, for instance, water with a high content of iron may not be suitable for drinking but may be suitable for recreation purposes. Evaluating water quality involves comparing measured chemical concentrations with a baseline of concentrations given by certain policy or with guidelines established to protect human health or ecological communities. e.g. Temperature, pH, metals, nutrients.

Biological Indicators: Include biological processes, species or communities that are used to assess the quality of the environment, as well as the changes on it over time. These changes include anthropocentric disturbance such as pollution, land use change, also natural phenomena such as floods, drought, freeze and others. However, the main focus of bio-indicators is on anthropocentric disturbance.

Flow:The amount of fluid in movement over time, it can be represented by Kilograms per second or cubic meter per minute, just to give a couple of examples.

Sediment Quality:Material from mineral, rocks, soil and others that has been broken down by different processes such as erosion and subsequently transported by the action of the wind, water, gravity or others. The adequate quality (concentration of metal, organic chemicals or nutrients) helps protect ecosystems.

Environmental Objectives

They are all those objectives of environmental quality that describe the level of environmental quality required for specific purposes or beneficial uses in order to avoid risks or to protect them. In case there are variations of environmental quality of the surface waters that could mean:

a. If the quality of some surface waters is better than the environmental quality objectives, then the environmental quality should remain as close as practicable to the background levels.

b. If there are some environmental quality objectives that cannot be met due to natural variation, then the background level becomes the environmental quality objective.

c. If the quality objectives may not be attained in all segments in a period of time of 10 years, then it is necessary to set regional targets for environmental rehabilitation. If the surface waters have had extensive environmental modifications, then, this should be taken into consideration when proposing actions to improve environmental quality and protect beneficial uses.