Understanding the General Environmental Duty: What Victorian Businesses Need to Know When They Receive an EPA Notice

Cat McCarthy

Receiving a notice, fine, or direction from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria is a stressful experience – but it’s also a clear signal that your business has obligations under Victorian environmental law that need to be addressed urgently. At McCarthy Plumbing Group, we work closely with commercial and industrial property owners who find themselves in exactly this situation, helping them understand what the law requires and what they need to do next.

In this blog, we explain the key piece of legislation that underpins most EPA enforcement action in Victoria: the General Environmental Duty under the Environment Protection Act 2017 (Vic) – and what it means for your business when you’ve been issued a notice or fine.

What Is the Environment Protection Act 2017?

The Environment Protection Act 2017 (Vic) – which came into full effect on 1 July 2021 – fundamentally changed the way environmental protection works in Victoria. The old 1970 Act was largely reactive: businesses were penalised after harm had already occurred. The new legislation flips this around, placing a proactive duty on every individual and business in Victoria to prevent harm before it happens.

This is the most significant overhaul of Victoria’s environmental protection framework in two generations, and it has real consequences for how commercial and industrial premises manage stormwater, groundwater, spills, and on-site pollution risks.

The General Environmental Duty: What Does It Actually Mean?

The centrepiece of the new Act is the General Environmental Duty (GED), set out in Part 3.2. In plain terms, the GED requires that:

A person who is engaging in an activity that may give rise to risk of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste must minimise those risks, so far as reasonably practicable.

This applies to all Victorian businesses – not just those in heavy industry or waste management. If your premises have drainage that connects to the stormwater network, chemical or oil storage, vehicle washing areas, loading docks, or any process that generates wastewater, you have obligations under the GED.

Practically speaking, businesses are required to:

Use and maintain plant, equipment, and systems in a way that minimises pollution risk
Store materials and waste to prevent runoff, spillage, or groundwater contamination
Identify and manage risks from stormwater and drainage before problems occur
Train staff on environmental obligations relevant to their role

Think of it like the workplace health and safety general duty – but for the environment. If you know about a risk and fail to act on it, you’re already in breach.

What Happens When You Receive an EPA Notice?

The EPA has a range of enforcement tools under the Act, and they are using them. When an EPA officer identifies a risk or an actual pollution event, they can issue:

Improvement notices – requiring you to take specific action to manage a risk
Prohibition notices – stopping an activity that is causing or threatening harm
Environment action notices – requiring you to clean up or remediate a pollution event
Remedial notices and directions – outlining specific steps to fix a plumbing or drainage defect, manage contaminated land, or address stormwater issues
Infringement notices (fines) – issued on-the-spot for breaches of the Act

Importantly, the EPA will not typically accept “I didn’t know” as a defence. The GED is written so that what a person ought reasonably to have known is taken into account. If a stormwater drain on your property was discharging polluted water into a waterway, the fact that you weren’t monitoring it doesn’t exempt you from liability.

What Are the Penalties?

Penalties under the Environment Protection Act 2017 are significant – and they have continued to increase. For corporations breaching the General Environmental Duty, civil penalties can reach well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. For aggravated breaches (intentional or reckless conduct), the penalties are even higher.

Beyond the financial consequences, the EPA can also suspend or revoke licences and permissions, halt operations entirely via prohibition notices, and refer serious cases for prosecution.

A recent example: a Templestowe land developer was fined nearly $6,000 by EPA Victoria after failing to comply with a remedial notice regarding a contaminated former industrial site – and the notice itself remained in force, requiring an independent auditor assessment and ongoing annual progress reports. The fine was on top of the compliance obligations, not instead of them.

The key message from the EPA is consistent: notices must be taken seriously and acted on. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away – it adds fines to an obligation that still has to be fulfilled.

Stormwater and Groundwater: Where Plumbers Come In

Many of the remedial notices and directions the EPA issues relate to stormwater and groundwater pollution – areas where a licensed plumber with environmental compliance expertise is exactly who you need. Common triggers include:

Stormwater drains discharging industrial wastewater, oil, sediment, or other contaminants
Incorrect connections between trade waste and stormwater systems
Site drainage that flows to the wrong legal point of discharge (LPoD)
Spills or leaks that have reached the groundwater or stormwater network
Absence of a compliant stormwater management plan

Under the GED, all of these scenarios represent a failure to minimise risk so far as reasonably practicable – and the EPA is empowered to issue notices requiring you to fix them.

This is where McCarthy Plumbing Group comes in. As suitably qualified persons (SQPs) under EPA Victoria’s framework, our team can assess your stormwater and drainage systems, identify the source of non-compliance, develop a remediation plan, and carry out the required works – all within the timeframe set by your notice.

What Is a Suitably Qualified Person and Why Do You Need One?

When an EPA notice requires remediation work or an assessment of your drainage or groundwater systems, it often specifies that the work must be carried out by a suitably qualified person (SQP). This isn’t just any plumber – it’s a licensed plumber with specialist knowledge in environmental compliance, stormwater systems, and EPA regulatory requirements.

We’ve written in detail about what makes someone an SQP and how we fulfil that role. If you’d like to understand this further before contacting us, read our earlier blog: Who is a Suitably Qualified Person according to the EPA?

Our Experience With EPA Compliance

McCarthy Plumbing Group has been helping Melbourne businesses navigate EPA compliance for years. We’ve seen every kind of notice – from site improvement notices about inadequate stormwater management, to clean-up notices following chemical spills, to directions requiring full remediation of groundwater contamination.

Some of our recent work in this space is documented in our case studies and related blogs:

Don’t Wait – EPA Notices Have Deadlines

One of the most important things to understand about EPA remedial notices is that they come with strict timeframes. Failing to act within those timeframes results in additional fines, escalating enforcement action, and an obligation that still hasn’t gone away.

If you’ve received an EPA notice relating to your stormwater, drainage, or groundwater systems, contact McCarthy Plumbing Group as early as possible. We can review your notice, advise you on your obligations, and get to work on a compliant solution.

Call us on (03) 9931 0905 or visit melbourneplumbingconsultants.com.au to speak with one of our EPA compliance specialists today.

McCarthy Plumbing Group are licensed plumbers and suitably qualified persons servicing commercial and industrial clients across Melbourne and Victoria. We specialise in EPA compliance, stormwater management, groundwater remediation, and legal point of discharge investigations.

Understanding the General Environmental Duty: What Victorian Businesses Need to Know When They Receive an EPA Notice