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Parliamentary Questions


Question Without Notice No. 630 asked in the Legislative Council on 21 August 2018 by Hon Dr Steve Thomas

Parliament: 40 Session: 1

DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION —LANDFILL WASTE CLASSIFICATION AND WASTE DEFINITIONS

630. Hon Dr STEVE THOMAS to the Minister for Environment:

I refer to my questions without notice 568 and 613 asked last week on the landfill waste classification and waste definitions. In the answer to part (4) of question without notice 568, the minister stated, and I quote —

Thresholds were adopted that would not be lower than typical ambient background levels encountered in soils of the Swan coastal plain.

(1) What are the definitions or limits of ''typical ambient background levels encountered in soils of the Swan coastal plain'' of vanadium, copper, uranium, arsenic, chromium (III), nickel and pH?

(2) Has the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation been made aware of any testing of soils from the Swan coastal plain from public or private projects in which the ''typical ambient background levels'' have been exceeded for vanadium, copper, uranium, arsenic, chromium (III), nickel and pH?

(3) If yes to (2), will the minister table a list of those exceedances, including the levels detected?

Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:

I thank the honourable member for some notice of this question.

(1) Typical ambient background levels for soils of the Swan coastal plain are provided in the following two sources listed in tabled paper 1597: Olszowy, H., Torr, P. and Imray, P. 1995, Trace Element Concentrations in Soils from Rural and Urban Areas of Australia, contaminated sites monograph series 4, Department of Human Services and Health, Environment Protection Agency and South Australian Health Commission; and, Prakongkep, N., Gilkes, R.J., Singh, B. and Wong, S. 2011, ''Mineralogy and chemistry of sandy acid sulfate soils in the Perth metropolitan area of the Swan Coastal Plain'', report to the Department of Environment and Conservation, June 2011.

(2) No. Given the variety of soil types across the Swan coastal plain, it is likely that the concentrations of some metals exceed typical ambient background levels in some locations. Prior to publication of the ''Landfill Waste Classification and Waste Definitions 1996 (as amended 2018)'', the department compared the maximum concentrations for metals in table 6 with available data from Main Roads Western Australia's Gateway WA project. All samples in the Gateway dataset comfortably meet the relevant maximum concentrations in table 6. I now table the Gateway WA project data.

[See paper 1638.]

(3) Not applicable.

I note that the honourable member has now raised several questions about the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation's ''Landfill Waste Classification and Waste Definitions 1996 (as amended 2018)''. Given the member's interest, I offer him a detailed briefing on this matter.