November 2004 (PDF 11.6 MB) - Barrick Gold Corporation

9 Consent/licence conditionsThe process by which a consent authority grantsdevelopment consent or regulatory authority issueslicences with associated conditions is set out inFigure 1.1. Only where a noise impact is identifiedwould a mitigation strategy need to be considered.Negotiation would be needed only when the proponentconsidered that the project-specific noise levelswere not achievable.9.1 What is included in the consent/licenceA consent agreement or licence condition arrived atthrough the process described in this policy willhave taken the following issues into account:• the assessed noise impact, which includes theimpact of the noise source and any additionalimpact caused by meteorological conditions• mitigation measures required to achieve theproject-specific noise levels• identification of a practical limit on noisecontrol• consideration of trade-offs• whether the final noise level proposed isacceptable.It is important to note that the agreed limits in theconsent or licence apply under the meteorologicalconditions determined by the policy to be relevant tothe assessment site.Complaints about subsequent operation of thefacility may arise where the project-specific noiselevels are achieved, or when a higher level is negotiated,because it is not possible to protect the wholerange of individual sensitivities to noise.Complaints are also possible during extreme temperatureinversions that were not covered in theassessment process because of their infrequency (seeSection 9.2).9.2 Specifying meteorologicalconditions in the consent/licenceThe meteorological effect by its nature is variable.Particularly intense inversions may occur, leadingto actual noise increases greater than those assessedin the policy. This is because the policy’s approachis to identify levels of noise increase that occur for asignificant period of time—approximately twonights a week during winter. Other, more intenseevents may occur for a shorter period of time. Thisshorter period is judged in the policy as not beingsignificant and, therefore, not warranting theadditional expense and difficulty of either a higherlevel of mitigation or consideration of alternativestrategies to meet the greater impact.This approach is similar in philosophy to that usedwith transportation noise, where an appropriateamenity level is set to protect 90 per cent of theexposed population from being ‘seriously affected’.It is not practicable to protect the whole population,because the response to noise varies widely betweenindividuals. In the case of noise increased bymeteorological effects, the noise limit may allowsome undesirable impacts on a proportion of thepopulation during the short term and duringunrepresentative meteorological events that increasenoise to an excessive degree. As is the casewith transportation noise, it is not practicable tomeet the noise limit under all inversion events,hence exceedances under extreme temperatureinversions are not considered to be a non-compliancewith consent or licence conditions.To ensure that the consent or licence conditionapplies under typical meteorological conditionsrelevant to the site (that is, the condition determinedfrom Section 5) a consent or licence condition may bebased on the following:• For developments where F-class inversions(normally associated with non-arid areassuch as the Hunter Valley and coastal areas)were found to be a feature of the area (that is,using the procedure outlined in Section 5.2)the following statement could accompany thenoise limits in the condition:NSW industrial noise policy47