When must a pollution incident be notified in NSW?

A spill, leak, escape or emission requires an immediate assessment of whether the incident has caused or threatens material harm to the environment. If it has, Part 5.7 of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (NSW) (POEO Act) requires notification immediately after the relevant person becomes aware of the reportable incident.

Notification and containment are parallel workstreams. Investigating the cause, collecting samples or waiting for a complete picture must not displace immediate containment, implementation of an applicable pollution incident response management plan (PIRMP), or a notification duty that has already arisen.

1. Material harm is the reporting threshold

The statutory test has two parts:

1. A pollution incident occurs in the course of an activity and causes or threatens material harm: section 148(1).
2. Harm is material if either:
   • actual or potential harm to human health or safety, or to ecosystems, is not trivial; or
   • actual or potential loss or property damage exceeds $50,000 in aggregate: section 147.

The $50,000 figure applies from 12 December 2025. Before that date the figure was $10,000. Where the duty to notify arose before 12 December 2025, the $10,000 figure applied. The amending Act contains no transitional rule for this change, so it is not settled which figure applies to an earlier incident that a person first became aware of on or after that date. Section 147 also allows the regulations to prescribe a different amount; as at 30 September 2026 none had been prescribed.

For the monetary limb, section 147(1)(b) provides that “loss includes the reasonable costs and expenses that would be incurred in taking all reasonable and practicable measures to prevent, mitigate or make good harm to the environment”. Harm can be material even if it remains within the premises where the incident occurred.

The inquiry is fact-sensitive. Volume alone is not decisive. Relevant information can include the substance and concentration, pathway, receptors, duration, weather, containment, actual or potential human and ecological effects, property impacts and the reasonable cost of response.

In Environment Protection Authority v Bulga Coal Management Pty Limited [2014] NSWLEC 5, Pain J held at [81]–[92], after a not-guilty plea in a Class 5 prosecution, that the prosecution had to establish actual awareness that the incident caused or threatened material harm. The summons was dismissed: [137].

At [91]–[92], Pain J relied on Pereira v Director of Public Prosecutions (1988) 35 A Crim R 382 at 385; [1988] HCA 57. Actual knowledge may be inferred from suspicious circumstances coupled with a failure to inquire, but the element remains actual knowledge. Bulga Coal concerned the former requirement to notify “as soon as practicable”. That expression was replaced by “immediately” in 2012, as Pain J recorded at [8], so the decision supplies no period of grace under the current Act.

2. Notification is immediate and the duties overlap

Section 148 assigns separate duties to identified persons:

• Under section 148(2), the person carrying on the activity in the course of which the incident occurs must, immediately after becoming aware of the incident, notify each relevant authority and give all relevant information known to that person.
• Under section 148(3), an employee who becomes aware of an incident in the course of the employer’s activity must immediately notify the employer and give all relevant information known to the employee. If the employer cannot be contacted, the employee must notify each relevant authority.
• Under section 148(3A), an employer who is notified by an employee, or who otherwise becomes aware of an incident related to the employer’s activity, must immediately notify each relevant authority and give all relevant information known to the employer.
• Under section 148(4), the occupier of premises on which the incident occurs must, immediately after becoming aware of it, notify each relevant authority and give all relevant information known to the occupier.
• Section 148(5) separately requires an employer or occupier to “take all reasonable steps” to ensure that persons engaged by them notify the employer or occupier immediately of a relevant incident and provide all relevant information known to those persons.
• Section 148(6) extends the section to a person engaged to carry on an activity as agent for another. In that case, a reference to an employee extends to the agent and a reference to an employer extends to the principal.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) explains “immediately” as promptly and without delay. There is no fixed safe number of minutes or hours.

In Environmental Protection Authority v Bald Hill Quarry Pty Ltd [2024] NSWLEC 114, Pepper J accepted at [79], in a Class 5 sentencing decision following guilty pleas, that immediate notification enables authorities “to prevent or minimise the effects of any pollution incident”. On those facts, a serious fire on licensed premises was unknown to the relevant authorities for approximately 3.5 hours. The decision is a sentencing illustration, not a safe-harbour rule for any period of delay.

3. Every relevant authority must receive the call

Each “relevant authority” in section 148(8) must be notified:

• the appropriate regulatory authority;
• the EPA, if it is not the appropriate regulatory authority;
• the local authority for the area, if the EPA is the appropriate regulatory authority;
• SafeWork NSW; and
• Fire and Rescue NSW.

The Ministry of Health ceased to be a listed relevant authority on 23 September 2025, when the Environmental Legislation Amendment Act 2025 (NSW) received assent. Other laws, licence conditions or the incident circumstances may still require contact with health, emergency, planning, water or other bodies.

Section 137(1) of the Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Regulation 2022 says a reportable incident “must be notified verbally to each relevant authority” and “must be followed by notification in writing within 7 days of the date on which the incident occurred”.

That written deadline runs from the incident date, not the initial call. The EPA can be contacted through its Environment Line; the EPA incident-management page provides the current contact process. A licence or PIRMP may impose additional steps.

4. Give what is known, then update it

Section 150(1) states:

“The relevant information about a pollution incident required under section 148 consists of the following—

(a) the time, date, nature, duration and location of the incident,

(b) the location of the place where pollution is occurring or is likely to occur,

(c) the nature, the estimated quantity or volume and the concentration of any pollutants involved, if known,

(d) the circumstances in which the incident occurred (including the cause of the incident, if known),

(e) the action taken or proposed to be taken to deal with the incident and any resulting pollution or threatened pollution, if known,

(f) other information prescribed by the regulations.”

Section 150(2) supplies the then-known qualification:

“The information required by this section is the information known to the person notifying the incident when the notification is required to be given.”

Do not delay the initial call because every detail is not yet available. Section 150(3) states the update duty:

“If the information required to be included in a notice of a pollution incident by subsection (1)(c), subsection (1)(d) or subsection (1)(e) is not known to that person when the initial notification is made but becomes known afterwards, that information must be notified in accordance with section 148 immediately after it becomes known.”

Section 151A also permits the EPA to direct the occupier of premises where the reportable incident occurred to notify other persons specified in the direction.

5. The exceptions and protection are narrow

Section 151 dispenses with notification only where:

• the person is aware that the incident has already come to the notice of every person or authority they must notify; or
• the incident is an ordinary result of action required by an environment protection licence, an environment protection notice or another POEO Act requirement.

There is no exception for incidents involving only odour. The Act once had one, in section 148(7), but it was repealed with effect from 1 January 2015. Since 12 December 2025, a new section 148(7) has allowed the regulations to prescribe pollution incidents to which Part 5.7 does not apply. As at 30 September 2026, the Regulation prescribed none.

A person must notify even if the notification may incriminate them or expose them to a penalty. Section 153 prevents the notification itself being admitted against that person for an offence or penalty, but it does not protect evidence later obtained because of the notification. This is a limited direct-use protection, not a general immunity.

Failing to notify as Part 5.7 requires is an offence under section 152. The maximum penalty is $4,000,000 for a corporation and $1,000,000 for an individual, with a further daily penalty while the offence continues.

6. PIRMP and licence reporting are separate

Holders of an environment protection licence (EPL) must prepare, keep, test and, when required, implement a PIRMP under section 153A, section 153C, section 153D, section 153E and section 153F. The EPA may also, in accordance with the regulations, require the occupier of premises where industry is carried out to prepare a PIRMP: section 153B. The EPA’s PIRMP guidance should be checked against the licence and plan. Section 75(1)(b) says that, if an incident connected with the licensed activity “caused or threatened material harm to the environment”, the PIRMP “must be tested … within 1 month of the incident occurring”. That event-driven test is additional to the routine annual test in section 75(1)(a).

In Environment Protection Authority v Clarence Colliery Pty Ltd [2026] NSWLEC 13, a Class 5 sentencing decision on a prosecution by the NSW Environment Protection Authority following guilty pleas, the PIRMP was required to be tested by 20 January 2024 but was not tested until at least 14 October 2024, a continuing period of 269 days: [18]–[19]. The defendant submitted that the offence was essentially a regulatory offence of relatively low criminality: [46]. Pain J did not agree. At [47], her Honour said that submission “does not pay sufficient regard to the importance of upholding the statutory scheme and the responsibilities of the holder of an environment protection licence”.

Pain J assessed a penalty of $300,000 and applied a 25 per cent discount for the guilty plea, producing $225,000: [125]. Applying the totality principle across the offences, her Honour then reduced that amount to $157,500: [127], [140]. It is a first-instance sentencing decision on agreed facts, not authority for extending or calculating the statutory month.

Licence non-compliance is reported separately. The EPA states that an EPL holder must report any non-compliance with its licence conditions within 21 days of becoming aware of it, with limited exceptions for some licences that are not tied to premises. The EPA distinguishes that reporting process from immediate incident notification under section 148. Completing one does not necessarily complete the other.

Immediate response should secure people, evidence and deadlines

• Protect people and contain the incident without disturbing evidence unnecessarily.
• Record when each person first learned the facts relevant to the material-harm assessment.
• Identify the activity operator, employer, occupier, licence holder and appropriate regulatory authority.
• Make the required verbal notifications immediately; log the time, recipient and information provided.
• Implement the PIRMP if it applies and preserve the version used.
• Keep a contemporaneous incident chronology, photographs, samples, monitoring data and instructions.
• Update authorities immediately as specified information becomes known.
• Calendar the seven-day written notification, any licence report and the one-month PIRMP test.
• Review any later clean-up or prevention notice separately. See Clean-up and prevention notices in NSW: compliance, cost and review.

For how these duties sit within a wider pollution or contamination problem, see land contamination and pollution in NSW and our environmental regulation work.