How to apply for a sea dumping permit

The deliberate dumping of waste and other matter in Australian waters is prohibited, except for some controlled materials.

Under the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 (Sea Dumping Act), 'Controlled material’ means:

• Wastes or other matter (within the meaning of the London Protocol).
• A vessel, aircraft, or platform.

To dump or place controlled materials within waters regulated by the Sea Dumping Act, you must apply for a permit.

You can apply to:

• create an artificial reef
• dispose of bulky items from small islands into the sea
• perform a burial at sea
• dispose of carbon dioxide via carbon capture and sequestration at sea
• dispose dredged or excavated material at sea
• dispose of fish waste at sea
• abandon platforms or other man-made structures at sea
• dump platforms or other man-made structures at sea
• dump vessels at sea.

Preparing to apply

If you are proposing sea dumping activities, you may need to talk to other relevant Commonwealth, state, territory, or local government agencies about other regulatory obligations. These agencies may be responsible for:

• environment protection and conservation management (including quarantine and marine parks)
• fishing and aquaculture
• heritage protection and marine archaeology
• marine transport and navigation safety
• offshore resource management (for example, petroleum, gas and CCS)
• native title
• ports and harbours
• tourism.

You will need to perform a self-assessment of the environmental impacts of your activity. You must demonstrate that other options for waste management and disposal have been considered.

This includes:

• considering the potential impacts of the material on the environment
• the potential hazard of contaminants
• the technical and economic feasibility for sea dumping.

If you identify any potential significant impacts to Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES), you will need to refer the activity separately under the EPBC Act. This includes potential significant impacts to Commonwealth marine areas.

Consultation requirements

Any application to dump waste at sea must consider potential effects on other uses of the sea. Anyone applying for a permit under the Sea Dumping Act must demonstrate adequate consultation with users of the sea before submitting their application.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

To carry out a sea dumping activity within the boundaries of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, you must comply with:

• Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981
• Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975.

You must apply for a sea dumping permit through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (the Reef Authority). You must use the relevant sea dumping application form. Lodge your application to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Assessment team at assessments@gbrmpa.gov.au.

Contact the Reef Authority

• Website: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
• Phone: (07) 4750 0700
• Email: assessments@gbrmpa.gov.au.

Apply for a permit

If your activity requires a permit under the Sea Dumping Act, you must apply to the Minister for the Environment and Water.

Things to consider when preparing your application:

• Contact us as early as you can if you need help completing an application.
  • By consulting with us early, you will limit the risk that you invest time and resources into a project that needs further development or modification.
• We recommend organising a pre-application meeting with us before submitting your application to discuss the assessment process, timeframes, potential environmental impacts and mitigation measures.
• You can choose to engage a specialist marine consultant to help prepare your sea dumping application and/or environmental impact assessment.
• Sea dumping applications may take over 12 months to be assessed depending on their complexity. You should factor in sufficient time for us to undertake an assessment, well in advance of when you propose to undertake the activity.
• Applying does not guarantee that a sea dumping permit will be granted.

Submitting your form and supporting documents

The application form must not be modified in any way. All sections must be completed, otherwise your application will not be accepted.

Once completed, you can submit your application form and supporting documents via:

Email

Once completed, you can submit your application form and supporting documents to seadumping@dcceew.gov.au. The email size limit is 10 MB. If your application and supporting documents are larger than the limit, split your attached documents across multiple emails.

SIGBOX

Due to Commonwealth cyber security policies, most filesharing sites are blocked by our IT system.

SIGBOX is our preferred file sharing site for the secure upload, download and sharing of multiple and large files. When you are ready to submit your application, please contact us at seadumping@nationalepa.gov.au to arrange the creation of your SIGBOX account. Please allow up to 5 business days for this process.

Post

Hard copies can be sent to:

Director
Sea Dumping Section
Environmental Permitting and Compliance Division
National Environmental Protection Agency
GPO Box 3090
Canberra ACT 2601

Fees

Fees are set out in the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Regulations 1983. The amount depends on the sea dumping activity. More information on how we recover the cost of assessing permits can be found in the Cost Recovery Implementation Statement.

You must pay the fee within 30 days of submitting your application. We will not assess a permit application if there are outstanding fees.

Sea dumping activities and fees

Sea dumping activity	Fee
Dredged or excavated material <100,000 m3	$10,000
Dredged or excavated material >100,000 m3	$23,500
Artificial reef	$10,000
Burial at sea	$1,675
Platform or other man-made structure	$12,700
Vessel	$12,700
Bulky items	$5,000
Fish waste	$5,000
Carbon dioxide	$5,000
Application to vary a permit	$860