Woodville North Groundwater Prohibition Area

Portions of Woodville North, Pennington and Athol Park have historically been areas where significant industrial and manufacturing activities were undertaken.

These activities have included the manufacturing of ammunitions, whitegoods and vehicles.

Groundwater (bore water) in the upper 3 aquifers (0–20 m below ground level) is known to be contaminated.

If contaminated groundwater is a risk to human health, the EPA has the ability under the Environment Protection Act 1993 to establish a Groundwater Prohibition Area (GPA). Once a GPA is established both current and future landholders will not be able to access the groundwater.

Health problems can occur if people come into contact with the contaminated water over a long period of time. The contamination presents a potential risk to human health if groundwater is utilised for drinking, showering, washing, filling swimming pools, watering lawns or irrigating edible produce.

Preventing the extraction of contaminated groundwater is necessary to protect human health and prevent the spread of contamination. The purpose is to protect both current and future landholders from accessing the contaminated groundwater.

Once established, future purchasers of properties within this area will be made aware of the groundwater prohibition via the Form 1 statement provided to prospective buyers at the time of sale.

This informs future purchasers that existing groundwater bores are no longer able to be used and no future bores can be installed at the property.

The Form 1 statement is required to be provided by a vendor (the seller of the property), usually through the real estate agent or conveyancer to a prospective buyer, under Section 7 of the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994.

As a report outlining the need for this prohibition has been prepared, a YES response will also be generated for question 4(c) of the Particulars relating to environment protection in the Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Regulations 2010.

This informs future purchasers of the land that a copy of the Groundwater Prohibition Area determination report is available to them from the EPA Public Register.

This is in addition to any other EPA interests that have previously been flagged for the title, should they exist.