Environmental management and mitigation
Snowy Hydro’s ability to protect the environment from harm starts with the way Exploratory Works is designed and built. There have been a number of design improvements made to avoid and minimise impacts in some areas. Where impacts can’t be avoided a suite of management measures and offsets are needed.
Snowy Hydro will be responsible for overseeing the construction of Exploratory Works to ensure they are delivered in line with the conditions of approval. Snowy Hydro will appoint a construction contractor to carry out Exploratory Works in compliance with this EIS, the conditions of any approval granted and any environment protection licence granted by the NSW EPA. This includes the implementation of a Construction Environmental Management Plan (CEMP) and all other activities relevant to managing construction impacts.
As with most of the existing Snowy Scheme, Exploratory Works will take place primarily within KNP. Snowy Hydro’s existing occupation within KNP is carefully managed and it is recognised that additional long term strategies are needed to plan for residual impacts associated with Exploratory Works. Snowy Hydro has been consulting with NPWS on these matters since the announcement of Snowy 2.0.
Several long term management strategies will be prepared including a site rehabilitation strategy, biodiversity offset strategy, and a suite of specific management actions for KNP which are the subject of ongoing consultation with NPWS. Snowy Hydro also plans to enter into a heads of agreement with NPWS which will form the basis of an agreement setting out the broad measures proposed to mitigate impacts to recreational users of KNP, and nominate the monetary contributions required to fund these measures.
The Exploratory Works management framework is shown below:
