Residual risk payments for an environmental authority

You may be required to make a residual risk payment after lodging an application to surrender an environmental authority (EA) for your resource activity.

Your residual risk payment covers the likely costs and expenses incurred by Queensland Government to manage and remediate your resource activity after financial assurance has been returned to you.

When surrendering your environmental authority, you will be required to carry out a risk assessment in compliance with the Residual risk assessment guideline (ESR/2020/5433) (PDF, 786KB). The risk assessment will provide you with an estimate of the residual risk payment.

The administering authority will decide on the residual risk payment amount by calculating all potential costs and expenses associated with managing, rehabilitating, restoring and protecting the environment after your resource activity is complete, and your environmental authority has been surrendered.

The Queensland Government may also require a residual risk payment as a condition of a site management plan for land that is recorded in the contaminated land register.