ANZECC water quality guidelines - Introduction
ANZECC is a Ministerial council of Australian and New Zealand environment and conservation ministers. It offers New Zealand the opportunity to cooperate with Australian environmental agencies on a variety of issues, including water management.
National guidelines exist for some specific areas of water quality management, but broad guidance on what can and can’t be discharged to our waters has been missing.
Until now, regional councils have had to rely on overseas guidelines, which are often inappropriate, or on guidelines that are now significantly out of date.
The ANZECC guidelines take a risk-based approach. They:
- include new data
- provide a better understanding of impacts
- offer guidance on sediment quality
- contain detailed advice on water monitoring and assessment.
New to these guidelines are ‘trigger values’. In other words:
- if concentrations of contaminants are below the specified trigger values: there is unlikely to be any concern
- if the concentrations are above the trigger values: the guidelines show how site specific criteria can be developed
- if the concentrations are above the site-specific criteria: the guidelines recommend that alternative management options be considered.
