The NSW Environment Protection Authority has been "captured by industry" and starved of the resources needed to do its job, according to submissions to an inquiry into the agency.
An upper house inquiry into the EPA's performance is examining its overall activities but also how it handled six cases. These include land contamination at Botany and Hillsdale, its investigation into the effects of coal dust pollution in the Hunter and ground water contamination by Santos at its coal-seam gas exploration in the Pilliga.
In its submission, the Nature Conservation Council said a general view among its 130 member groups was that the EPA was an ineffective regulator that had lost the trust of the community.
Having an EPA is "critical" for protecting the environment "but it needs to be independent and it needs to be resourced", Kate Smolski, the council's chief executive, said. "It's too close to industry and puts industry ahead of the public."
In a 279-page defence of its performance, the EPA said it was "progressively working towards" meeting its mandate, but noted that "resourcing remains an issue".
Rather than seek more budget funding, however, the EPA is aiming for greater "cost recovery", adding to the $18 million it generated from issuing licences in 2013.
Pilliga concerns
Groups such as the Wilderness Society were particularly scathing of the EPA's failure to be make public its findings, particularly in relation to its handling of what the authority called a "spill" of "salts and other elements", at Santos' coal-seam gas operations in the Pilliga.
The disclosure failed to note that "other elements" included uranium, arsenic, lead and other metals in unsafe concentrations, the group said.
After two months of investigations, the EPA was unable to determine whether a health warning was required, due to a lack of information. And while the authority was told by Santos in May 2012 that one of its ponds treating CSG waste water had problems, it was still describing it as a "suspected leak" in 2013.
The Nature Conservation Council said any proposals for major new polluting developments should be put on hold until the inquiry is completed.
"Given the risks associated with CSG, we have serious concerns about moving ahead with large gasfields in the Pilliga and western Sydney without knowing what impacts we might have on the water supply," Ms Smolski said.
In its submission, Santos said there had been no danger to stock or crops, and no risk to private bores from the spill.
"The localised groundwater where the elevated concentrations were found is very limited in area and volume and the water is not used for agriculture, stock irrigation, human consumption or domestic purposes," Santos said. "The detected concentrations are below those found in surrounding soils."
River impact
Submissions such as the one from The Colong Foundation for Wilderness said the EPA was complicit in allowing contamination of waterways even as state and federal governments granted approval to expand mine operations.
It singled out the Clarence Colliery owned by Centennial Coal, which has an EPA licence to emit 18 megalitres of effluent daily into the Wollangambe River, a wild river in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
Research by University of Western Sydney researcher Nakia Belmer, to be presented to the inquiry, will show that zinc concentrations of the waterway below the mine are 10-times recommended guidelines for aquatic ecosystems with nickel double the level, and water temperatures 2.5 degrees warmer.
"Below the mine, macro-invertebrate richness has decreased by 65 per cent and abundance by 90 per cent," the Colong's submission said. "The loss then goes up the food chain impacting on fish, birds and platypi."
Among the committee members, two come from both the ALP and the Liberals, one from the Nationals and the Greens, with Robert Brown of the Shooters and Fishers Party as chairman.
The committee is due to report its findings by February 14, about a month before the state elections.
