COODE ISLAND COMMUNITY
CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
Adopted Minutes
Thursday, 16 June, 2011
|
PRESENT
|
|
ITEM 1. WELCOME
BY THE CHAIR, APOLOGIES & CONFIRMATION OF DRAFT AGENDA
Robin
Welcomed Adam to the meeting.
Apologies: Carlo
Fasolino, George Horman, Kerry Murphy. , Deborah Macfarlane, Bro Sheffield
Suggested
we begin the meeting with Item 4 on the Agenda, Adam’s presentation on the
Compliance and Enforcement Review Recommendations.
Agreed
Draft
Agenda confirmed. (see below for Item 4)
ITEM 2. CONFIRM
DRAFT MINUTES FOR THE MEETING ON 17 MARCH 2011 AND REVIEW ACTION ITEM LIST
Draft
Minutes – Adopted.
Action Item 03/2011-1 (Copy
of new EPA licence) Done
Action Item 03/2011-2 (Paul Heywood presentation on seal
breakdown of tank 318) Deferred to next meeting
Action Item 03/2011-3 Analyser installed – report
from Yokogawa tabled.
Action Item 03/2011-4 (Invite EPA rep re Compliance
& Enforcement presentation) Done
Action Item 03/2011-5 (Electronic copy of 2010/1011
Annual Report to EPA) due July
Action Item 03/2011-6 (Request to Geoff Millard
for January to June 2010 to be covered in 2010/2011) Annual Report) Done
Action Item 03/2011-7 (Regulatory sign off of IAR by
EPA) EPA has advised that they no longer endorse EIPs, and so this action is no
longer relevant. Item Done.
Action Item 03/2011-8 (Statutory rule that require
tank testing every ten years) Done 16.6.11 – provided pages from
Maintenance Manual, which tabulate the monthly, 3 monthly, 6 monthly. Annual, 5
yearly and maximum 10 yearly tank inspections required.
Action Item 03/2011-9 (review of remuneration for
members) Deferred to next meeting
|
Action Item |
Robin to scan the 2 pages from Terminals Maintenance Manual providing |
ITEM 3. REPORTS
FROM AGENCIES AND TERMINALS
TERMINALS PTY LTD
Peter
outlined the Operations Report, drawing attention to several matters. These
were:
- the six monthly quality audit had
been done, - there were no injuries during the
report period, and - there were only two severity 1
incidents (least severe), relating to problems with the Nitrogen
generator, which were rectified.
EPA
Adam Handed
out the June 2011 Activity Report . The report is attached to the minutes.
ITEM 4. EPA
TO PRESENT ON THE COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS
Adam Thanked the
committee for the opportunity to attend the meeting. He tabled copies of the
document “Compliance and Enforcement Review – Overview of key themes and
recommendations for ERA Victoria”.
After
external reviews by both the Ombudsman and Auditor General found EPA regulatory
approach inadequate, the EPA engaged Stan Kropane, formerly the Director of
Legal Services and Investigations at WorkSafe Victoria, to conduct an
independent review. The Review involved assessing how EPA educates and supports
duty-holders to comply with the law, and how it enforces those that do not.
Review
began in April 2010 and finished December 2010. Thirty information sessions were
conducted across the state. Stan found EPA to be a confused regulator, He produced
a report with 119 recommendations. The report was issued in December 2010.
The
Compliance and Enforcement Policy is to be released at the end of June
2011. All information will be available on the EPA website.
Topics
expertly covered by Adam were:-
·
Summary of key findings and recommendations
·
EPA’s response to the report
·
Transforming EPA into a modern regulator
·
Social duty of care and moving beyond licensed
sites
·
A risk based and responsive regulatory model,
the importance of language and a better approach to targeted enforcement, and
consequences.
·
EPA’s approach to regulation
·
Compliance and Enforcement Policy.
Adam gave an excellent presentation, very knowledgeable and
informative. Many questions were offered from the committee members to
whom he gave precise, informed answers over two and half hours.
In response to questions, Adam advised as follows:
- Adam visited USA and UK to investigate
how other authorities handled Compliance and Enforcement (C&E).
The general experience was that C&E typically swung between a light
touch (where there was little prosecution and consequently little pressure
on recalcitrant facilities to lift their game) and a heavy touch (where no
flexibility was apparent, and considerable resources required for
compliance). In USA, OSHA had used the heavy approach, and the resultant
government response was to cut its budget until it got to a very small
size, and was virtually ineffective). - EPA’s C&E policy is not
sent to the Minister for approval, as EPA is an independent statutory
authority. Regulations got to the Minister and Parliament before they
become law. In the case of SEPPs, while these are called ‘Policies’, they
are in fact regulations. The administration of policies cannot be
challenged at VCAT, but the administration of regulations can be taken to
VCAT or to court. - Out of EPA’s 400 staff, about
100 are Environment Protection Officers.
Robin Thanked Adam
for his excellent presentation.
ACTION ITEM Adam to
email Robin his presentation document on C&E for distribution.
ACTION ITEM Carlo
to advise the committee, in relation to the present facility monitoring program,
and the new requirement under the amended licence for the monitoring program to
be risk-based, what the program for this work is, and when it will be
undertaken.
ITEM 5. PAUL
HAYWARD PRESENTATION ON SEAL BREAKDOWN ON TANK 318
Peter Due to
Paul being in Adelaide and Sydney during the week Paul will defer presentation
to next meeting.
ITEM 6. OTHER
BUSINESS
Robin advised that Safe Work Australia has sent a ‘pro forma’
acknowledgement of our submission on the Commonwealth Model H & S
Regulations.
In line with earlier advice from WorkSafe, a significant round of
public meetings will be undertaken in October to provide more information about
the implementation of national Work Health and Safety laws, and that individual
briefings to the CICCC would depend on the availability of limited staff resources..
Marcia Barker confirmed that it would not be feasible for WorkSafe to provide a
speaker to brief the CICCC September meeting unless there was an audience of at
least 20 people, due to resourcing limitations.
Robin further advised that it may be possible to get further people
to attend a CICCC meeting, such as the Marstel committee.
While there was some support for inviting the Marstel Committee
members, or other groups, to such a meeting, Peter stated that Terminals would
not attend such a joint meeting.
In view of the difficulty of getting community numbers up to the 20
persons nominated by WorkSafe, and the desire of Terminals not to attend any
joint meeting, Robin recommended that we seek the dates of the public meetings,
and CICCC members could attend those public sessions if they wished. The
meeting agreed with that outcome.
Robin said that he had advice from Geoff Cooke about senior
appointments at WorkCover. Ian Forsyth, who reports to WorkSafe’s CEO (Greg
Tweedly), has taken over John Merritts’ responsibilities and Lisa Sturzenegger,
who reports to Ian, has been appointed to a new role as General Manager
Operations, Health and Safety. The Directors of the Health and Safety Industry
Programs now report to Lisa.
Robin suggested that Lisa be invited to address a future meeting.
NEXT SCHEDULED MEETINGS:
Meetings are scheduled for 8 September and 8
December.
MEETING CLOSED 10:30 PM
Attachment: EPA
Activity Report June
2011
CLIENT – terminals
– coode island
|
EPA Key Contact: EPA Customer |
|
|
|
sTATUTORY ACTIVITIES |
|
|
|
pOLLUTION iNCIDENTS AND rEPORTS |
|
Community § July 2010 – June 2011 = 0 community reports |
|
ACTION ITEMS FOR EPA |
|
“That the EPA regulatory signoff be advised for the EIPs are no longer statutory activities (the EIP |
|
OTHER LOCAL AND EPA NEWS |
|
Statutory Policy Review Statutory Comments are sought until 19 August
Draft Clean Fill Guidelines
EPA Victoria has released a Before finalising the guideline, EPA is seeking
HRL’s dual gas demonstration project in the Latrobe EPA
The
The second part of HRL’s Notice blitz During
|