Environment

The Corporation is committed to achieving community recognition as a clean and green provider of sustainable power, water and sewerage services. We also recognise that, no matter where we are in the Territory, we are in our own backyard and have a responsibility to keep it clean.  We want to keep our air clean and clear. We want to ensure that our waterways and aquifers remain unpolluted, and that we do not contaminate our lands. We want to enhance the biodiversity values of land and water that we manage, and to protect those ecosystems or plants and animals that may be vulnerable or endangered. And lastly, we want to ensure that we maximise the efficient use of fossil fuels while seeking renewable and sustainable long-term alternatives.

Our environmental goals

Wherever we operate we will:

• keep our air clean and clear
• ensure that our waterways and aquifers remain unpolluted
• ensure that we do not contaminate our lands
• enhance the biodiversity values of land and water that we manage
• protect the ecosystems or plants and animals that may be vulnerable or endangered
• maximise the efficient use of fossil fuels while seeking renewable and sustainable long-term alternatives.

Our environmental policy

Whenever we operate we will:

• Aim to achieve our ultimate goal of zero harm to people and the environment.
• Develop and review measurable objectives and targets that promote continuous improvement of our >environment, quality, health and safety performance.
• Prevent pollution and minimise any adverse effects our operations may have on the environment.
• Promote a work culture that achieves corporate targets through safe behaviour, environmental awareness and use of quality systems.
• Aim to eliminate work-related illness and injury resulting from our operations.
• Comply with relevant legislation, regulations and other documents relevant to the Corporation.
• Ensure environment, quality, health and safety roles and responsibilities are documented and that they are clearly communicated, understood and accepted.
• Ensure personnel and contractors have the necessary information, training and supervision to meet regulatory and corporate requirements.
• Seek to understand our customer needs, meet their requirements and aim for total customer satisfaction.
• Be honest, consistent and fair in our dealings with our customers and suppliers.
• Ensure this policy is actively communicated and made available to personnel, relevant stakeholders and interested parties (including the public).
• Ensure this policy is periodically reviewed so that it remains relevant and appropriate.
• We will demonstrate these commitments by meeting the requirements of ISO14001, ISO9001 and AS4801.

Our environmental objectives and initiatives

Power and Water uses three objectives as the starting point for its environmental performance:

• 100% compliance with our legal and statutory obligations
• zero environmental incidents causing environmental harm and operating within licence conditions
• zero extreme environmental risks at any Power and Water facility.

100% compliance

We use a number of tools to ensure that we comply 100% with our legal and statutory obligations. They are detailed below.

Legal Register: we maintain a legal register that sets out in detail the regulatory requirements that apply to our business activities.

Australian Standards: we have a large number of liquid fuel and chemical storages, and we review them annually to ensure we comply with Australian Standards such as AS1940 - 2004: storage and handling of flammable and combustible liquids.

Codes of Practice: we are a signatory to the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) Code of Environmental Practice. This means we must audit our compliance every two years. We are able to self-audit because we have a certified Environmental Management System in place. An internal audit was done in October 2006, and the results were provided to ESAA.
We are also a member of the Greenhouse Challenge Plus program and a participant in the Generator Efficiency Program. The Australian Government Department of the Environment and Water Resources runs both programs, and we provide annual progress reports.

Zero environmental incidents causing environmental harm

Our Integrated Management System (IMS) has a strong focus on identifying and mitigating risks to reduce the chance of environmental incidents.

We aim to achieve zero incidents through identifying potential risks to the environment before commencing a job, promoting awareness of potential impacts on the environment, and by establishing a program of reporting environmental hazards.

All environmental incidents that cause or have the potential to cause environmental harm are reported to the NT Environment Protection Agency within 24 hours.

Zero extreme environmental risks at our facilities

As part of our Integrated Management System we are developing environmental risk registers for our major facilities.

We have established registers for our most significant facilities such as the waste water treatment plants in Darwin and Alice Springs (eg Ludmilla Waste Water Treatment Plant) and major power stations (eg Channel Island Power Station). We are working our way through the 258 facilities we operate across the Northern Territory.

Key documents

At Power and Water we aim to minimise our impact on the environment, and we have a number of key documents in place to help us achieve our goals:

• Environment, Quality, Health and Safety Policy (PDF 556.2KB)
• Environment Report (PDF 1.9MB)

The Electricity Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) promotes the Code as a commitment of electricity businesses to sound environmental performance. Power and Water is a signatory to the Code. Part of this commitment involves an annual performance audit against the Code, reported to the ESAA.

• ESAA Code of sustainable Practice

National Pollutant Index

The National Pollutant Index (NPI) is an Internet database designed to provide the community, industry and government with information on the types and amounts of certain substances being emitted to the environment. Power and Water report estimated emissions to the NPI on an annual basis.

• See also: National Pollutant Index website