Multiple discrete acts of placing pollutant at separate locations, each constituting a complete offence under s 120 of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (NSW), cannot be charged in a single count merely because they occurred during the construction of a single road. The rule against duplicity applies with equal strictness to environmental prosecutions as to the general criminal law. Prosecutors must identify and charge discrete offences individually, though multiple machine applications at a single location near a single gully may properly be charged as one offence.
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