Public and Worker Risk Assessments

Overview

Any EIA of a project that involves major construction requires a risk assessment to minimize potential hazardous threats. The Snowy 2.0 risk assessment was set by the project Secretary’s Environmental Assessment Requirements (SEARSs). The potential list of threats assessed by SEARs are:

Potential hazardous impacts of the projects
Public safety
Onsite risks to employees and those directly engaged in the construction
Various other risks that are covered under other sections of the EIA (air quality, bushfire risk, etc.)

Hazard and Risk Assessment

SEARs made sure that a hazard identification (HAZID) and risk assessment was completed for the construction and operation phases of the project. A risk due to storage of explosives was assessed and the study concluded that the condition of these risks met the New South Wales Departments of Planning Land Uses’ criteria for Land Use Safety Planning. Moreover, the transport of explosives was qualitatively assessed and managed by adherence to the Australian Dangerous Goods Code for the transport of dangerous goods. The risk to the public, in the event they access a construction site was managed by site security arrangements.

Conclusion

Overall, all possible major risks were well identified and assessed. In conclusion all potential hazardous scenarios and risks to the public and employees comply with the land use planning risk criteria and safeguards are in place to manage the residual risk. Necessary precautions were even taken place to mitigate other major risks such as the risk of bushfire and flooding. These risks were given their own separate EIA sections which are to be assessed thoroughly.

Snowy Hydro 2.0 dam model