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Scenario · Safety, Licensing and Compliance

Respond to the regulator's odour notice as a major non-conformance

You are the environmental compliance coordinator in Safety, Licensing and Compliance.

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The situation

What has happened

On 2 September three residents east of the Windsor facility complained of strong odour between 6:30 and 8:00 am. The register shows windrow 26-088 was turned at 7:00 am with a light easterly wind, which the odour management plan lists as a condition under which turning must not proceed. The regulator has issued a notice requiring a written response within 14 days covering the cause, immediate actions and preventive measures, and the complainants are owed a reply within five working days. Ngaire Patterson wants the event treated as a major non-conformance: investigated against the procedure and licence, risk assessed, root caused with the organics crew and answered with a corrective action plan that will stand up to scrutiny.

Your brief. Investigate the odour event against the procedure, the odour management plan and the licence conditions, assess the environmental risk, establish the root cause with the crew, draft the response to the regulator and the replies to complainants and prepare a corrective action plan that is tracked in the registers.
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Tasks

Deliverables

  • Investigation record with evidence and root cause
  • Environmental risk assessment
  • Draft response to the regulator
  • Draft replies to complainants
  • Corrective action plan with register entries

Documents to use

Systems to use

Incident, Hazard and Environmental Event Register

Logs injuries, near misses, hazards, fires, spills, odour events, complaints and licence exceedances with severity, actions and closure.

Continuous Improvement Register

Tracks improvement actions from every site and program with owner, due date, status and measured benefit.

Environmental Sample and Monitoring Register

Tracks every field sample, windrow temperature record and monitoring result from collection to reported result and compliance check.

For trainers and assessors

Units of competency

Current on training.gov.au for the Sustainability as at 10 September 2026.

MSS407034Respond to a major non-conformance
MSS027025Coordinate environmental management activities
MSS025031Assess the environmental risk and impact of a project activity or process
MSS014020Optimise sustainability performance of a work area or process
MSS027026Implement environmental legislation, codes and standards

Qualifications

MSS50222Diploma of Environmental Monitoring and Technology
MSS50322Diploma of Competitive Systems and Practices
Assessor notes

What to look for

Evidence guide

Look for an investigation grounded in the records and the crew's account, a risk assessment that considers repeat likelihood, a root cause that goes beyond the individual decision to the system that allowed it, a regulator response that is factual and specific about preventive measures and timeframes, and complainant replies that are respectful and plain. Actions must be tracked in the registers with verification measures.

The student's evidence summary lists every record they created or changed in the systems named above, their notes and the tasks they ticked. Verify it against the deliverables and your own assessment tool.