How to report
You can submit an online s14 report.
When reporting an incident, you are to give as much of the following information as you can:
- what happened, how the pollution is occurring or how you think it may occur
- where the incident occurred
- the date and time of the incident
- the attempts being made to prevent, reduce, control, rectify or clean up the pollution and address any environmental harm
- your identity.
When to report an incident
You must notify us as soon as possible after the incident occurs.
Notification must occur within 24 hours of becoming aware of an incident that has caused or threatens serious or material environmental harm. If you report the incident within 24 hours we cannot use the report as evidence to take legal action against you.
You do not have to make a report if the potential pollution or environmental harm is trivial or negligible, or if the incident results in only localised noise, smoke, dust, fumes or odour.
Generally, you will need to make a report if there has been a spill of a contaminant or waste (such as hydrocarbons, paint, pesticides, or other toxic chemicals), and the spill:
- has entered a waterway (including a drain)
- spread more than three metres or
- left your premises.
If you are unsure about making a report, contact us.
If written notice is required to be given to the occupiers or registered owners of affected land, you may use this as a guide for what information to give.
Read more about your environmental obligations and duties.
How we respond
See our triage guideline PDF (755.2 KB).
Previous section 14 incident reports
View all the section 14 incidents reported to the NT EPA.