Ruth Davies
Department Of Energy, Environment And Climate Action (deeca) Victoria
Ruth Davies is a senior policy officer in the Environment and Planning Policy team in the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. Her focus is on improving the interaction between the environment protection and planning regulatory frameworks, particularly around contaminated environments. She is a highly experienced engagement practitioner. Her previous role was Principal Planner at EPA Victoria. During her consulting career Ruth worked on many large environment effects statements and other environmental assessments in Victoria and other states, focussing on social impact assessment and alignment with strategic planning policy.
Julia Noel 
Department Of Energy, Environment And Climate Action (deeca) Victoria
Julia Noel is a Policy Officer in the Environment Protection Branch at Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action (DEECA). Her role is centred on delivering guidance to planners on managing potentially contaminated land, including the , , and . Julia has worked for many years in the state government and private sector in contaminated land and land use planning, including in regional Victoria.
Fixing the mistakes of the past for cleaner and safer future communities
Early mining, farming and industrial developers paid little attention to the future environmental impacts of their activities. Wastes and rubbish were left where they lay or dumped in convenient holes. Chemicals and oils were allowed to seep into soil and groundwater. Old factories were abandoned, and the locations were left unusable. These sites are eyesores in many regional towns and cities. Contamination issues are hard enough to manage in urban areas by well-resourced councils and are much harder for rural and regional councils to deal with.
Our team has undertaken extensive research with Victorian councils on the issues they face in effectively dealing with contaminated land and groundwater in their communities. These include everything from lack of expertise in interpreting regulation to the costs of remediation making sites uneconomic to develop. Councils often have to hire outside experts to interpret environmental reports, increasing costs, or they may not even be aware of likely contamination, which creates the risk of contaminated land being developed for housing without first being remediated.
In this presentation we will provide a summary of the findings from our engagement and research, including case studies. We will present the toolkit we have developed for planners, which includes infographics, templates and guidance. This includes developing clearer guidance on environmental regulation and working to clarify which agricultural activities create risks for future development and how to assess those risks. We will also discuss what other states are doing in this area.
Our objective is to raise awareness of the issues associated with past industrial and agricultural land uses and what resources are available to support planners in dealing with them. We want to ensure that regional communities receive the same environmental outcomes as urban areas and that their planners are fully resourced to deal with these issues.
