Environmental Health Risk Assessment

On this page:

• Development Applications
• Environmental Impact Assessment
• Fact Sheet

Development Applications

All proposals for development require a development application to be submitted to the Development Consent Authority, through the Department of Planning and Infrastructure's Development Assessment Services (DAS). DAS then circulates the application to relevant Northern Territory Government Agencies including this Department's Environmental Health Branch for comment as part of the development consent process.

Environmental Health comments are sought for developments and uses which may need to meet the requirements of the Public Health Act and Food Act. Examples being food businesses, public accommodation facilities, and land subdivisions that rely upon on-site wastewater disposal.

Environmental Impact Assessment

The Northern Territory does not have a formal administrative or legislative process in place for the provision of health impact assessment to the Environmental Impact Assessment process.

Notwithstanding, this Department considers that systematic consideration of the broader issues of health impact within a community is important in the context of sustainable development. The Environmental Health Program carries out environmental health assessments on significant developments assessed under the Environmental Assessment Act and presented for comment from the Environment Protection Agency. The Environmental Health Program's comments are primarily based on information presented in Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), Public Environmental Reports (PER), Notice of Intents (NOI), and Environmental Management Plans (EMP).

The following enHealth publications are key reference documents used by the Environmental Health Program when preparing an environmental health assessment:

• Health Impact Assessment Guidelines - September 2001 
• Environmental Health Risk Assessment - Guidelines for assessing human health risks from environmental hazards - June 2002

Fact Sheet - Environmental Health Risk Assessment