25 October 2013

PRESENT

Robin
Saunders:

CICCC /
Chairperson

David Barry

Senior
Environment Protection Officer, EPA

Ian Thomas:

Community
Rep./Committee

Jemma Pech

EPA

Faye Simpson

Community
Rep./Committee

George Horman

Managing
Director, Terminals Pty Ltd

Michael
Isaachsen:

Community
Rep./Committee

Carlo
Fasolino

State Manager
Victoria, Terminals Pty Ltd

Deborah
McFarlane

Community
Rep./Committee

Gary
O’Sullivan

Operations Manager
– West Melbourne

Kalia Loche

Minute Taker

Robin

Welcome to George Horman, David Barry and Jemma Pech

Apologies – Bro Sheffield Brotherton

Draft Agenda – confirmed

04/2013/1

& 07/2013/1

Carmel to advise whether attachments are included in the licences
available on the EPA Web site.

Robin to contact Marg Renwick, to invite her to the next meeting,
and to seek clarification on the present status of the portal, and which Terminals
documents on the EPA data base that are available through the portal.

David

David advised that he was not responsible for Action Items flowing
from commitments of other EPA representatives.

Robin

There seems little point in pursuing this matter further.

George

Terminals was bought by US investors in 2006 for US$80 Million and
today it is worth 4 times that.

The last 7-8 years has seen Terminals grow strongly which is due
to regulations and refinery closures in Australia. Australia now needs to
import what we used to make.

Terminal latest project is Pelican Point
Terminal in Adelaide. With a cost of $70 Million to build it has the capacity
to store 84,000 cubic meters of fuel. Phase 1 is underway and the first ship
will arrive in January 2014. It is a major point for imports into Adelaide,
with access to deep water allowing larger ships to use the facility. The
Adelaide refinery has closed.

Phase 2 at Adelaide will only go ahead if
Olympic Dam proceeds, to meet its needs for diesel.

The bund wall at Phase 1 is almost
4metres high to meet the code requirements for the 25,000 cubic metre tanks
enclosed (a volume comprising 100% of the largest tank, plus 10% of the other
tanks and an allowance for fire fighting). There are four floating roof tanks
for ULP and premium grade petrol with ethanol, and two tanks for diesel. A
complication for site and bund drainage is that ethanol mixes with water,
making it more difficult for any water cleaning that may be necessary.
Emissions from the truck loading operations are sent to carbon beds, where a
vacuum system is used to pull the hydrocarbons off in a gasoline scrubber.

The principles applied to the plant
design include bottom loading for trucks, and gas detectors. Nitrogen
blanketing is not necessary with the floating roves. The plant has been
designated a Major Hazard Facility. The tanks sit on a piled construction
with a concrete base, while the bund has a high density polyurethane barrier,
welded at both the tanks and the bund intrerfaces.

There has been a recent expansion to the
Botany site with a construction of a Bitumen storage facility. This $45
million expansion stores bitumen largely for roadworks, and 200,000 tons of
Australian Standard 450 Bitumen was supplied last year. (Victoria uses 320
Bitumen for asphaltic concrete to roads, and 170 Bitumen for car parks. The
various grades of bitumen have different viscosities.

At Geelong there has been the
construction of the Avgas tank and six Caustic Soda tanks. The Combustor
explosion last year at Geelong which was caused by propane being used to mix
bitumen at overseas refineries alerted the industry to the fact that propane
was being used. Prior to the explosion the possibility of propane in bitumen
was not known in Australia.

Ian

I wasn’t aware that was not known prior
to the explosion there was an explosion at Geelong, why were we not informed
of this?

Robin

It was discussed at the Geelong Community
meeting but I will send you a copy of the report

ACTION ITEM

Robin to send Geelong Report on the
propane explosion at Corio to the Melbourne Committee.

George

Now that Vopak are selling one of their
facilities in Botany, Terminals is looking into starting a new $22.5 Million
project which would include 14 new tanks, storing combustible liquids only.

Faye

What innovations have you been using?

George:

To address the propane problem we dilute
the emissions from truck loading with more air. Sampling bitumen is tricky
and we have designed a workable system for doing this. We have also installed
a detonation arrestor in the line leading to the combustors that does not
allow any flame to pass through to the combustor. It consists of a large
volume of fine honeycomb like metallic construction, giving the same overall
volumetric throughput, but lowering the temperature of the gas below that
which could sustain a flame.

We are also investigating opportunities
for Terminals Pty Ltd in Melbourne, but we’re not going west, it’s too far.
We have also secured some land in Brisbane.

Robin

George, have you considered adopting the
suggested underlying principles on which the Terminals environmental policy
is based, which were discussed at the last meeting of the Committee?

George

I have had a look at the suggested
policies but in my opinion they are not measurable and do not relate to core
issues as a business. I am more concerned about how the chemicals are
handled.

Robin

Do you have an issue with them?

George

I do not have any issues with the
suggested policies but they sound more like a mission statement than policies.

Robin

 I agree, and I would point out that
they are not policies, but general principles upon which the Terminals
Environmental policy is based (see wording of Section 4.1 in the EIP –
Philosophy and Procedures)..

George

Suggestions need to be more specific.
What does Terminals have to put in place to satisfy the suggestions? We are
already good neighbours to
the surrounding community.

ACTION ITEM

Carlo to revise the additional principles
upon which Terminals policies are founded for Georges approval and adoption.

George

Lastly, Geoff Millard, Safety Environment
& Training Officer is leaving Terminals in January 2014 and Stephen Lewis
of Worley Parson is replacing Geoff.

Robin

Thank you George for joining us today, and
sharing your knowledge of the direction Terminals has been moving with us. It
is nearly three years since you were last present at a CICCC meeting, and I
would hope that we would see you again well before another three years has
elapsed.

Robin

I still have not had a response form EPA
regarding staff changes and the current status of the portal.

David

EPA will not be attending another CICC
meeting for at least 12-18 months.

Robin

Can you follow up on issues presented to
you today?

David

I didn’t commit to the action items that
other EPA officers agreed to. My role is not to follow up on action items
from the committee however I will show you how to find items on the website.

Deborah

Why can’t EPA help us out with our
issues?

Robin

The EPA web site is very difficult to
use.

David

If you have any issues with the site I
advise you to call the 1300 number.

Ian

I believe EPA was better represented and managed when EPA attended
every meeting

Robin

I have an issue finding the documents
relating to specific companies such as work approvals, prosecution and
information provided to EPA. Can these be found on the site?

David

Absolutely they can be found on the site

Robin

I have been unable to find documents
about Coode Island, even when searching under West Melbourne

David

Gave a demonstration of how to find
documents.

However no documents were found relating
to West Melbourne, or Terminals Pty Ltd. Specifically, the Works Approval for
the various recent developments at the site were not found.

David

Media releases are only available for view 4 weeks after PIN
issued. You are able to search by either location or court.

Michael

Are you able to search by company?

David

You can search by prosecution to legal
entity so must be careful that the term is not too generic or will not filter
through properly.

Robin

Could you please try Work Approvals?

David

It is a requirement under the Act that
work approvals are available to the public.

Robin

But we are unable to get into work
approvals for Terminals.

David

Work approvals are only public domain for
21 days for public comment and then after that period you must apply for them
under FOI.

Robin

What is available then on the web site?

David

I am unsure specifically as I am here to
talk about compliance and EPA involvement with the community and not on the
portal.

Faye

What is your role?

David

I am a Senior Compliance officer and I do
a lot of enforcement. I have spent time on the field. Jemma and I recently
visited Terminals at Melbourne on the 10^th of October for a
compliance inspection.

Ian

How does EPA enforce the compliance
inspections?

David

EPA spends time educating companies,
giving advice and if advice/suggestions are not taken on then we enforce
notices on the companies.

EPA are focusing our resources on
minimizing risk and are trying to apply the limited resources as best we can
to ensure compliance which is why EPA will not be attending every CICCC
meeting.

EPAs resources are being concentrated in
three areas:

1.    Pollution & Emergency response – 30%

2.    Strategic activities – 30% (includes developing more
resources to inspect companies causing pollution.)

3.    Maintenance Activities – 40% (Terminals fall under the 3^rd
area.)

EPA’s six focus areas are:

·     
Contaminated Environments (there is a three
person team putting effort into highly contaminated sites):

·     
Land Fills (there is a three person team
working on leachate and gas issues on the main landfill locations):

·     
Stormwater (the focus is on electroplating
premises, which may have heavy metals in the wastewater stream):

·     
Stock Pilling (the focus is on stockpiles of
used tyres):

·     
Encroachments (the focus is on residential
encroachment on light industry areas):

·     
Organics (the focus has been on composting
facilities, which can be very smelly. Commercially there are two ways of
composting large volumes of green waste – in vessels or in windrows.
The EPA has had some wins. At Pakenham a smelly site has been closed.)

Level of
Service to community liaison committees is determined by which category the
company falls under. If the company is a high risk and receives more than 20
community complaints per year then EPA will attend every meeting. Medium risk
– if the company only receives 12 complaints per year we will attend
every 6 months

Low risk facilities
such as Terminals, which has not received any complaints, EPA will visit once
a year or when EPA can help with a specific issue the Community group has.

Faye

Does EPA provide suggestions to the
sites?

David:

Absolutely. The Act allows EPA to be
proactive. By attending sites and coming up with a list of issues at each
site and how the company can fix the issues.

Faye

With scientific development, are EPA
driven to review industries differently?

David

No, not yet. EPA use a risk based model.

Faye

I believe the community should get
together if they believe that EPA is not proactive in all fields are not
responding to community complaints.

David

Our compliance inspection at Terminals on
the 10^th October 2013 reviewed the performance of the facility
against the licence conditions for water, air and waste, and the required
monitoring program. We have asked Terminals to provide EPA with groundwater
data. We noticed that the way in which Terminals were testing groundwater was
different to what their procedures stated. Although the practice was better
than the procedure, it is in their license condition that the procedures must
match the practices.

Robin

Can a copy of the overheads be emailed to
me for distribution to the Committee?

David

I will have to check if the overheads can
be provided.

ACTION ITEM

David to confirm that a copy of the
PowerPoint presentation can be emailed to Robin, advise Robin, and if it can
be, email it to Robin directly.

Carlo

I am going to jump straight to incidents.
All incidents were minor.

Faye

I am concerned that the Greenhouse
emissions are going up compared to the previous tenures. Why is this?

Carlo

Melbourne’s capacity has risen by 67% in
the past few years. The burning of waste and combustors adds to the
emissions.

Michael

Would it be useful to tonnage the graph?

Carlo

2006 – 130
tons

2011 – 179
tons     

2012 – 195
tons

2013 – 200
tons

The graph needs
to be looked at as a trend

ACTION ITEM

Carlo to review the greenhouse table
in the report and see if there is a way to reflect throughput.

Robin

Based on
the returns from Community Members, Tuesdays at 3pm were preferred and
adopted. Proposed meeting dates for 2014  are 4 February (site), 22
April (MCC), 29 July (MCC) & 11 November (site)

Deborah

Could we please change the meeting on the 29^th of July
to 1 week earlier.

General discussion led to adoption of Tuesday 12 August 2014 at
3pm at the MCC in lieu of 29 July.

Ian

The paper on uses of Vegetable Oil Fuel
presented in Germany was a great success.

Faye

Could we have a copy of the paper?

ACTION ITEM

Ian to send the paper on Vegetable Oil Fuel to Robin by email, and
he will then circulate it.