25 November 1999

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COODE ISLAND COMMUNITY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE

Minutes of Meeting

Thursday 25 November 1999

 

PRESENT

Robin Saunders

Kevin Shea

Peter Kelly – WorkCover

Robert Glavich

Andrew Nolan

Frank Fichera

Ian Swann

Kathy Aktypis

Angels Aktypis

Dragitsa Velickovic

Mathew Wylie

Deborah Macfarlane

Jarrod Edwards – WorkCover

Ian Thomas

Ted Towson

George Horman

Carlo Fasolino

Peter Reddie

Dr. Peter Brotherton

Ian Gibson

Faye Simpson

Vanessa Richardson

 

 

ITEM 1. WELCOME BY THE CHAIR

 

The chairperson welcomed the committee, the new committee member – Kathy Aktypis (Kensington Residents Group), Kevin Shea (CI Users Group) and others present.

 

ITEM 2. APOLOGIES

 

Apologies were received from Trevor Perkins, Greg Twitt and Marg Leser.

 

 

ITEM 3. CONFIRMATION OF AGENDA

 

The draft agenda for the 25 November 1999 meeting was accepted by the CICCC. Items 7 & and 11 are recent additions to be included.

 

ITEM 4. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

 

The committee adopted these without amendment.
ACTION ITEMS.

 

  1. Coode Island Committee Update – Robin

The press release from the October meeting was circulated. See attachment 1

 

  1. Website – Robin

A list of comments on the proposed web site layout was circulated

See attachment 2

 

It had been necessary to register the CICCC as a Business Name so that a domain name can be allocated for the web page.

 

 

ACTION.      

 

  • In relation to the “request for information” form, Robin is to go ahead and prepare text.

 

  • The ‘ Mandatory Field ‘ will be removed.

 

  • Robin to set up the ‘Options’ as appropriate.

 

  • Robin is to respond to questions that will be posted by the community on the web page. He will bring these to each CICCC meeting.
  • In relation to ** the button on the Home Page, it is to read ‘feedback and enquires’.

 

  • Enquire with consultant regarding the inclusion of ‘search words’.

 

  • Frank’s contact postal address only on the web page.

 

  • Frank asked for the inclusion of ‘LINKS’ to other interested groups eg HazMAG, ACF, Friends of the Earth and The Clearing House.

 

 

 

ACTION. Discussion about wether or not to include the minutes of the CICCC sub committees concluded that this matter will be discussed and resolved in the future.

 

Robin said that the use of a photograph on the web page is to make the Home Page more pleasing, break up the text and not for illustrating the information being relayed.

 

The Committee agreed that Robin should now implement the web page, taking into account the points made above.

 

3) Committee Membership – Peter B

 

Peter said that the Combined Environment Group is presently looking at its aims, and determining whether or not to continue having representation on the CICCC.

 

  • List of residential and office developments within the EPA Buffer Zone – Ian Gibson. See attachment 3

 

See map.         • The unbroken line marks the 1 km EPA buffer zone.

 

  • The broken line is the 1 in 10-7 risk contour.

 

Notes about particular sites on the map.

  • Site A. This site’s activities are moving to Laverton. It will probably remain as a General Industrial site.

 

  • Site B. They are expanding their use of rail transport.

 

  • Site D. There has been some indication in the past that this site might move in the future.

 

  • Site G. The Yarraville Club submitted a planning application for more Pokies, but council recently rejected the Plan. Other future Plans are unknown at this stage.

 

  • Site I. Council would like to see the future redevelopment of this site to office/commercial use. Council recently rejected a planning submission for small factory/caretaker dwelling use.

 

  • North of Site K. There is medium density housing here including the Port Phillip Mills (Australian Academy of Design), serviced apartments and conference centre. Council see this northern area is an up and coming residential area.

 

  • Cummins Street will be the future northern boundary of the proposed redeveloped of Terminals site on Coode Island.

 

Faye asked about the contour buffer zones surrounding other sites like the Mobil site.

 

Matthew said that the Terminals site had the widest buffer zone because the materials stored at the Terminals site were more hazardous than those at sites like Mobil.

 

Faye said that potentially more residents could be affected by an accident at Mobil than at the Terminals site because residential homes were closer to Mobil. Faye asked about the synergistic impact of multiplying exposures over time and wether or not thought had been given to the potential impact on residents.

 

Matthew said that under the new proposed legislation, if the WorkCover Authority is concerned about these matters then companies will be asked to prepare combined safety assessments prior to the granting of licenses.

 

Frank asked about council policy in regard to the promotion or decline of the use of hazardous industry in the area?

 

Ian G said that along the river council have encouraged changes that decrease the risk profile. Councils have limited powers according to the land use zoning legislation. However Maribyrnong Council do the best they can to advocate for the minimisation of such industry wherever possible. They do not have a policy to abolish this type of landuse. In future they will do an environmental overlay when landuse planning is reassessed.

 

Mathew said there are 40 – 45 Major Hazard sites in Victoria. About 50% of them are found in this strip from Footscray to Williamstown. A Major Hazard accident is likely to happen every 5 years in Victoria and every 12 years in this strip.

 

Robert added that on top of Major Hazardous events there were also Major Events (referring to major accidents, which occur at sites which may not be determined to be Major Hazard Sites).  Matthew said in the above area there are 10-12 storage sites that will probably become future Major Hazard Sites if they store more than the 10% threshold of dangerous goods.

 

ACTION. George will develop a plan for the CICCC that tries to identify all the possible hazardous sites (and their buffer zones in the belt of sites stretching from Footscray to Williamstown.

 

Ian said that Orica store Chlorine gas and Albright and Wilson store red phosphorous. He says these chemicals are more dangerous than chemicals stored at the Terminals Coode Island site.

 

ACTION. WorkCover offered to provide a list to the CICCC and George of the Major Hazard sites in this strip. It will also provide a list of the Dangerous Goods stored on each site, and the threshold for each site.

 

  • Coode Island review panel recommendation concerning the communities health concerns. – Peter B.

Deferred. Remove from the Agenda

 

  • Correspondence to WorkCover (8 & 24 November ’99) State Development and Coode Island User Group –

 

See      attachments   4.1 and 4.2

attachment     5

attachment     6

 

 

ITEM 5. Presentation by WorkCover on General Procedures that Apply to Other Coode Island Users.

           

5.1 Legislation

 

The overheads of this presentation will be circulated. See attachment 15

 

 

New Draft Regulations for the Major Hazard facilities are currently available for public comment. They were

  • Drafted and prepared by the Kennett government
  • Submitted to the new government, and then
  • Released for public comment by the new government.

 

 

5.2 P& O Site at Coode Island

 

P & O’s license states that a maximum of 10,000 tons of dangerous goods (DG) can be stored at the site at any one time and they can only ever are stored for a maximum of 5 consecutive days.

 

WorkCover check for compliance approximately every 6 months. P&O keep a daily manifest of all ingoing and outgoing materials. Their license is renewed every 5 years, at which time everything is reviewed. The max tonnage they can handle is 10,000 at any given time but they are not close to this figure.

 

Their License includes requirements for a Fire Protection Report and for Emergency Planning.

 

12,000 containers labelled as Dangerous Goods were handled in 1997. Not all were full of Dangerous Goods as many also contained other goods.

 

In the absence of factual information, there was a discussion among committee members about quantities of DG stored at the P & O site.

 

ACTION. Matthew to get figures for amounts of DG kept on the P & O site on a daily basis.

 

Peter Kelly (DG Inspector for WorkCover) said that 1 in 20 containers that he inspected had not had their old DG signs removed from the container. So 1 in 20 containers marked, as containing DG in fact did not contain any DG. He said only 1 in 5 contained more than 100 litres of DG per container. He said he had never found a container containing DG, that was unlabelled.

 

They have a special bunded site for the safe storage of any damaged containers. This had been operating since 1994, (2 years before this was made a license requirement).

 

 

 

See attachment 16 – Major Hazard Facilities in Victoria

 

ITEM 6. Discussion with Kevin Shea, Independent Chair for the Coode Island Users Group.

 

Kevin has held this position since March 1999. The group has been meeting for 12 months and has had 6 meetings and 4 working party meetings.

 

His background includes among other things

  • Membership of the Victorian Poisons Board (1968 – 1978)
  • Transport & Storage of Dangerous Goods, Vic Roads. 1980 including the development of appropriate legislation.
  • Chair of the Fire Authority for the Port Melbourne Area.

 

Kevin Shea reported that the Coode Island User Group were working through

nine (9) recommendations put forward by TM Services for the WorkCover

Authority. These related to:

 

  1. Formation of the User Group on Coode Island
  2. Emergency Plan Exercises
  3. Communication Framework – Mutual Aid
  4. Melbourne Port Emergency Plan Review
  5. Accreditation for Shore Officers for ship to shore transfer of dangerous goods
  6. Traffic safety improvement study and traffic management for security.
  7. Location of emergency information (being considered in the Mutual Aid study)
  8. Manning of the Gatehouse
  9. Security Review at Coode Island

 

The Coode Island User Group Members are

  1. Pacific Terminals (Aust.) Pty Ltd P & O Ports Limited
  2. Gordon Brandon (Vic) P/L Mobil Oil
  3. Bentley Chemplax Terminals Pty Ltd
  4. King Transport Intertek Testing
  5. Tallow Master Pty Ltd Melbourne Port Corporation

 

They have recently invited 3 other transport companies to join their Users Group.

 

The advisors are

  1. Victorian WorkCover Authority
  2. Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board
  3. Environmental Protection Authority

Camberwell 3124

Phone: (03) 98827

See attachment 7 for summary report.

 

Faye asked if they had contingencies for YK2. Kevin said that they had a plan for the User Group. They are still working on some communication aspects associated with the Plan and they expect to have it completed by the end of the year. This joint plan is a requirement of their individual Licenses, however they are not aware of each other’s separate licensing arrangements with WorkCover.

 

See attachment 8.

Advertisements have been posted in public notices and as advertisements in papers, indicating that Terminals and the other industries at Coode Island are prepared and fully tested for safety regarding YK2. The Users Group have audited the member’s plans.

Terminals have thoroughly checked everything. They can cope with blackouts should they occur. They have stand-alone systems for fire fighting and power generation. They have 2 mega litres of water on site with a capacity for more from the Maribyrnong River if need be.

 

George said everything at Terminals has been checked for imbedded systems that may not be compliant save for a few office equipment items such as fax machines.

 

 

 

Ted said the HSE sub committee had started checking on these matters with Terminals about 18 months ago and things were being checked at that stage.

 

Faye asked if there was the capacity to bleed tanks should an emergency arise. George said it would not be possible to bleed tanks and that it was not likely to be needed as everything was thoroughly checked and safe.

 

Robin thanked Kevin. He said that the CICCC had appreciated Terminals ‘transparent’ communication with the committee, and he said that he hoped the User Group would adopt a similar policy. He asked Kevin to relay this request to the User Group.

 

Kevin said he would pass on Robin’s request at the next meeting of the User Group. He added that if the CICCC require specific information of one site on the island, it would be wise to invite them to address the CICCC directly. Kevin said he would be pleased to address the CICCC again in the future.

 

Item 7. Major Hazard Facilities Regulations – Need for a CICCC Response (Deadline 15 December 1999)

 

Copies of the Draft Regulations are available from WorkCover. Public comments will be received until 15 December 1999.

 

A WorkCover Public Briefing Meeting will be held as follows:

Date:               1 December 1999.

            Time:              6 PM

Venue:            Civic Centre Altona

 

See attachment 9.

Robin attended a similar meeting on 23 November, in Maribyrnong.  He has written a report of that meeting. The report contains a number of issues that the CICCC may want to consider when they make their submission.

  1. the need for P & O Ports to be a ‘major hazard facility’
  2. the need for better consultation provisions
  3. the need for ‘safety cases’ to be public documents

inadequacies with the Regulatory Impact statement.

 

A number of CICCC members made the point that the community consultation period is too short.

ACTION. The above comments will be included in the CICCC submission.

 

Kevin suggests that CICCCC members and others read the Regulatory Impact Statement as it is very readable and provides excellent information for discussion.

 

ACTION. Robin to draft a response from CICCCC and send to everyone for comment by 5 December. He will then finalise and submit the comments to WorkCover.

 

 

ITEM 8. HSE Achievements for Sign-Off.

See Attachment 10

 

Peter B asked what was meant by the CICCC ‘endorsing’ each item and how the endorsement of them might be used politically in the future? Robin agreed that the way the ‘achievements’ might be used needed to be seriously considered.

 

Robin said it meant that the CICCC would publicly say these items have been proven through rigorous investigation to the committee’s satisfaction. This may mean that further work is required but that to date the results are endorsed by the CICCC.

 

Andrew said that if the CICCC endorses these points it validates the many hours of work that have gone into each one. Otherwise what is the point of investigating all these issues?

 

All points were discussed in brief and the committee agreed with all. (Details of all these points can be found in previous sub committee and committee meetings) Some of the wording was changed to read as follow

 

Point 1. (No changes)

 

Point 2. (No changes)

 

Point 3. Remove the word that.

 

Point 4. (No changes)

 

Point 5. (No changes)

 

Point 6. Change to

‘While the cause of the Coode Island fires remains uncertain TPL has implemented control measures to reduce the risks of future fires’.

 

Point 7. Becomes part of Point 6, separated into one dot point on lightning, and

one dot point on earthquake mitigation.

TPL will consider best practise lightning, and earthquake mitigation measures as part of their design review for the proposed Terminal development.

 

Point 8.  Becomes part of Point 6

TPL have agreed….products stored.

 

Point 9. Change last sentence to

The subcommittee report that the mechanism in place for reporting accidents is robust and that all of the issues raised with TPL have been satisfied.

 

Point 10. (No changes)

 

Point 11. These changes

Replace “been privileged” by ”full access”

Put the three TM Services points in a list, prefaced by a new sentence.

 

Point 12. (No changes)

 

ACTION. All wording needs to be checked so that the final copies read ‘proposed’ redevelopment of Coode Island.

 

The preamble will read….

 

The Coode Island Community Consultative Committee (CICCC) adopts the following record of the achievement if its Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Sub-Committee for the period August 1998 to November 1999. In thanking the Sub-Committee for its considerable efforts, some members of the CICCC wish to make clear that they do not support the retention of bulk hazardous chemical storage on Coode Island in any form.

 

Ted said he felt disappointed that the above preamble is to be included. He thinks it unnecessary to make the above statement in the preamble, because he has no doubts that very thorough work has lead to these 12 Points.

 

Robert G said the new preamble states that only some CICCC members are making the comment. He said he would be prepared to put his name to the statement if it helped. He explained strongly to Ted that in no way did he think there was any doubt that the sub committee had done ‘good and hard work’. He said he believes that the information presented is ‘true and correct.’ but that the new preamble is in place to prevent the document from being used as a political tool in the future.

 

See Attachment 18 for details of each item.

 

Confirmation and extension of the HSE Sub-Committee’s brief.

See attachment 11

Robin thanked the sub-committee for their work and the CICCC gave the sub-committee a mandate to continue its work next year. Robin asked them to progressively present their findings to the CICCC for signing off in a similar form to the report just approved – in summary paragraphs rather than detailed text. As has been the case this year, the CICCC wish to continue receiving progressive Sub-Committee minutes and briefings about the ongoing work, so that CICCC is aware and involved in the development of these issues.

 

 

 

ITEM 11. Terminal’s Plans For Consultancies To Review Hazard Management (In Preparation For The Safety Case) – George Horman.

 

ACTION. Held over to the next meeting.

 

ITEM 12. Next Meeting.

 

Date: 20 January 1999

 

ITEM 13. Other Business.

 

13.1 Disaster Warning Plans– Hawaii

Deborah said she had recently seen an interesting program on SBS about the emergency evacuation procedures used in Hawaii to evacuate 100,000 residents in 3 hours. This had been necessary because on average every 2 years there is a threat of a tsunami (tidal wave).

ACTION. The Emergency Management sub committee will pursue this and obtain the information to see what lessons can be learnt from the Hawaiian experiences.

 

Deborah also asked about earthquakes in the Coode Island area.

ACTION. Andrew will obtain for Deborah the information already investigated by the sub committee on this matter.

 

13.2 See attachment 12.

The minutes of the CICCC Emergency Management Sub Committee meeting of 22/11/99 were tabled.

 

13.3 See attachment 13.

Coode Island Terminals Pty Ltd Monthly Operations & Occurrence Report for Nov 1999 was tabled.

 

13.4 See attachment 14.

A report by Cathy Aktypis on the Kensington Association Emergency Management Forum, held 6 October was tabled.

 

CLOSE

 

10.50 p.m.

 

Next meeting              20 January 2000

6.30 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 

CICCC ATTACHMENTS TO MINUTES NOVEMBER 1999

 

Attachment 1             Coode Island Committee Update

Attachment 2             Web Site – Layout and Content

Attachment 3             Ian Gibson – land Use Surrounding Coode Island                

Attachment    4.1       Correspondence to WorkCover

4.2       Response from WorkCover                                                   

Attachment 5             Correspondence to WorkCover

Attachment 6             Correspondence to Department of State Development         

Attachment 7             Kevin Shea’s Report   – UNAVAIABLE AT TIME OF POSTING

Attachment 8             Newspaper Adverts – Terminals and Y2K    Compliance

Attachment 9             WorkCover Public Meeting – Report Robin Saunders

Attachment 10           HSE Sub Committee Achievements              

Attachment 11           HSE Sub Committee 2000

Attachment 12           Emergency Management Sub Committee minutes Nov ‘99

Attachment 13           Terminals Monthly Report

Attachment 14           Forum Report

Attachment 15           Overheads  – WorkCover presentation

Attachment 16           Major Hazard Facilities in Victoria

Attachment 17           Coode Island Committee Update – newspaper

Attachment 18           CICCC Record of Achievements for the HSE committee

                                   

 

           

 

** These attachments will be sent by post to those who have received e-mailed minutes.