15Environmental assessment

15 Environmental assessment

(1) The environment plan must contain a comprehensive description of the activity including the following—

(a) the location or locations of the activity;

(b) general details of the construction and layout of any facility or other structure;

(c) an outline of the operational details of the activity (for example, seismic surveys, exploration drilling or production) and proposed timetables;

(d) any additional information relevant to consideration of environmental impacts and risks of the activity.

(2) The environment plan must—

(a) describe the environment that may be affected by the activity; and

(b) include details of the particular relevant values and sensitivities (if any) of that environment.

(3) The environment plan must—

(a) describe the requirements, including legislative requirements, that apply to the activity and are relevant to the environmental management of the activity; and

(b) demonstrate how those requirements will be met; and

(c) include details of the environmental impacts and risks for the activity; and

(d) include an evaluation of all the impacts and risks appropriate to the nature and scale of each impact or risk; and

(e) specify details of the control measures that will be used to reduce the impacts and risks of the activity to as low as reasonably practicable and an acceptable level.

(4) To avoid doubt, the evaluation mentioned in subregulation (3)(d) must evaluate all the significant impacts and risks arising directly or indirectly from—

(a) all operations of the activity; and

(b) potential emergency conditions, whether resulting from accident or any other reason.

(5) The environment plan must—

(a) set environmental performance standards for the control measures identified under subregulation (3)(e); and

(b) set out the environmental performance outcomes against which the performance of the titleholder in protecting the environment is to be measured; and

(c) include measurement criteria that the titleholder will use to determine whether each environmental performance outcome and environmental performance standard is being met.