COASTAL MARINE WATER QUALITY GUIDELINES OUT FOR COMMENT

COASTAL MARINE WATER QUALITY GUIDELINES OUT FOR COMMENT

• 24 March 2024
• Environmental Law
• SA Legal Academy

The Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment has gazetted a notice calling for input by 21 April 2024 on draft guidelines focusing on coastal marine water quality, and in that context, protecting the natural environment and mariculture.

Developed under the National Environmental Management: Integrated Coastal Management Act, 2008, the draft guidelines propose baseline standards of quality for maintaining different marine water bodies in a state fit for their designated water uses. In this case, those uses include farming aquatic plants and animals in salt water for human consumption.

According to the document’s executive summary, the guidelines’ ultimate objective is compliance with prescribed standards across ‘all coastal waters’ so that marine aquatic ecosystems are protected both in their natural environment and when farmed for human consumption. This is nevertheless noting that ‘effluent (and its associated contaminants) discharged into the marine environment from land-based sources typically undergoes initial dilution and dispersion at the outfall point (or pipe end)’, where water quality standards are ‘likely’ to be compromised.

The document itself is dated 2022, was posted on the department’s website the following year and is not marked ‘draft’.

• proposed new guidelines
• Government Gazette notice

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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