Toll 

Lindsay Ward (General Manager Port Operations)

David Kenwood

Dow

Barry Seaton

Geelong Community for Good Life

Gordon Alderson

Sue McLean

Joe Cicero

Geelong Community Forum

Sue Kelly-Turner

Geelong Environment Council

David Henshaw

Geelong Grammar School

Jon Apted (Director of Planning)

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Group

John Wilson

Northern Community Consultative Group

Paul Dakin

Bill Aitken

Special Monitors of Geelong

Catherine Jones

Terminals Pty Ltd

George Horman (Managing Director)

Carlo Fasolino (State Manager)

Gary O'Sullivan (Operations Manager, Corio)

Geoff Millard (HSE Manager)

Community Representative

Ralph Taylor

CFA Geelong

Barry Foss

Friends of Point Lilias and Corio Bay

Col Edwards

City of Greater Geelong

Steve Sodemaco (Co-ordinator Health)

Worksafe

Geoff Cooke

EPA

Dirk Dukker (EPA Environment Protection Officer)

Alexander Jovcic (Manager)

Tim Turnbull (Acting Manager)

North Shore Residents Group

Margrette Lewis

Special Monitors of Geelong

Franceska Dezalak

Item 1

Welcome by Chair

Robin

Welcomed committee and introduced Toll representatives Lindsay Ward and David Kenwood, also welcomed back Barry Seaton from Dow.

Item 2

Apologies, confirmation of Draft Agenda

Apologies given from Geoff Cooke [^] Worksafe, EPA [^] all reps, Joe Cicero (arrived later), Margrette Lewis- North Shore Residents Group and Franceska Desalak - Special Monitors of Geelong.

Sue Mc

Noted that Geoff Cooke had a presentation ready for the meeting regarding Worksafe's role in the Works Approval Process and requested that his presentation notes be included with the minutes.

Robin

Said he would email Geoff and request this.  Also stated that the EPA had emailed their letter of 26 April to DHS.  It was a request that had been made at the last meeting and Robin now tabled the letter. Copies of the EPA letter were provided to all members at the meeting.

ACTION

Robin to contact Geoff Cooke re his presentation on the WorkSafe role in the Terminals Butadiene Works Approval process.

Item 3

Confirmation of Draft Minutes of the 11 July 2005 TGCCC Meeting

Robin

Read from Geoff Cooke's emailed amendments with the following changes in wording (identified in bold) to page 9 of the draft Minutes: 

It would be assessed by WorkSafe and WorkSafe could intervene if any safety issues are identified.  He stated that the licence expires on July 15 2007 and at that point, if the safety case has not met the requirements of the Major Hazard Facility Regulation, the operational licence would not be re-issued and Terminals would have to cease operation. Terminals would have to demonstrate and provide information to Workcover's satisfaction.

Sue Mc

Requested that the date the planning appeal submissions closed, 7.6.05, be included in Bill's comment on page 3.

Jon

Raised the issue from the last meeting that the City of Greater Geelong would now include all residents of Geelong Grammar School in their notices list rather than just three names as ratepayers.

Robin

Confirmed the Draft Minutes from 11.7.05  had been adopted after amendments made.

ITEM 4

Presentation from Toll Geelong Ports by Lindsay Ward.

Lindsay

Introduced himself and gave an overview of the operations of Toll both in Geelong and across Australia.  He said that Toll Ports are a division of Toll Logistics, conduct Port Operations and have a stevedoring arm. Stevedoring operations operate out of a number of ports in Australia and Toll Ports is the largest regional stevedoring operation in Australia.  The Port operations in Geelong are owned by Toll (30%), Deutsche Bank (35%) and Hastings Funds Management (35%).  The Port of Hastings is owned by the government and Toll Ports manages it.  Toll manages the Port of Geelong through an operating agreement, with a staff of about 60 people. 500 vessel visits per year. They manage 14 berths, 5 storage sheds and 2 shore based cranes.  Westernport is smaller with 10 employees and 230 vessel visits per annum.  Lindsay stressed the importance of Health and Safety to Toll saying that in July 2003 they became a triple accredited business and that prior to that, although their safety record was OK there were areas to improve.  Their integrated health and safety system had seen an improvement in safety performance with an overall decrease in injuries and lost man-hours and no lost time due to injury in over twelve months. Toll's Safety and Environment Management Plan complied with government legislation and they had met the deadline in bringing it in. Lindsay also said that Toll's water/land emergency response plan was comprehensive.

In terms of where the Port was going, Lindsay said Toll was looking to grow the port and develop markets.  They were trying to get the railway into Lascelles wharf and were looking at what infrastructure existing and potential customers need.  Toll was also involved in the Strategic Land Use Plan.

Lindsay said Toll would target customers who were rail dependant or customers linked to better access to the port.  He said he was happy to answer any questions. 

Col

Asked where the word Toll had come from.

Lindsay

Said the company had originated in Newcastle and had been bought by Peko Wallsend. Toll had enjoyed phenomenal growth in the last ten years.

Col

Said Jack Toll had been a friend of his and he would turn in his grave if he knew Toll's filthy work-place practices. Col also talked about asbestos being inhaled when Toll brought it in.

Lindsay

Said he was prepared to talk about Toll Geelong today, not about the past.

Col

Said Toll had taken land that was not theirs. That the land Terminals was on was just a pile of rubble not able to hold such tonnage.

Lindsay

Said the land had been purchased in 1996, it was government land purchased in good faith. It had been done to guidelines.

Col

Asked why Toll had been reluctant to come to the Terminals GCCC meeting in the first place to show they had ownership of the land.

Lindsay

Said the Toll owned a lot of land around the Port and that plans at Council could show what land Toll owns.

Col

Said it was typical of Toll not to include the public.

Lindsay 

Said Toll didn't have to prove who owned the land. He said as a policy Toll did not attend all the consultative committee meetings except on an as-needs basis.

Col

Asked why Toll excluded members of the public on their committee.

Sue K-T

Objected.

Robin

Explained to Col that Lindsay was happy to come to this meeting on a needs basis.

Sue Mc

Asked Lindsay what type of accreditation he was referring to, was it ISO?

Robin

Stated ISO 9000 Series (Quality Systems), 14,000 Series (Environmental Management) and 4801 (Safety).

Lindsay

Said standards had been set re the minimum level for environment and safety.  That Australian standards set out operation standards.

Sue Mc

Stated it was possible for community members to get cynical when some industries meet environmental standards as it can be a tokenistic way of getting past the triple bottom line approach.

Ralph

Asked how Toll interface with and what requirements they have of Terminals.

Lindsay

Said Terminals have a lease going back to the 1970's. It is a special use zone 6. They use refinery pier, which Toll owns, and the pipe, which is not owned by Toll. Terminals pay money to use the pier and the land and they have lease conditions to meet.

Ralph

Asked what requirements Toll has of Terminals.

Lindsay

Said the lease conditions have to be met, that Terminals have to run their facility in line with good industry practice [^] i.e. the storage of hazardous chemicals. Lindsay understood there had been no issues with the tenant over the years.

Robin

Suggested Toll relies on the EPA and Worksafe to do the monitoring but asked if Toll would require anything further.

Lindsay

Replied no.

Bill

Referred back to 1994-1995 when the Port was sold and Toll took over the assets of the Port of Geelong. He said Corio Quay had special purposes and Point Wilson was owned by the Federal Government.

Lindsay

Said Toll doesn't own Point Wilson or Graincorp, Corio Quay, Pivot, Lascelles or Alcoa but own 100 hectares and zoning rights.

Bill

Asked if there were any amendments to the '95 legislation.

Lindsay

Said the Planning Scheme with the City of Greater Geelong, special use zone 6.

David 

Said when the Port was sold there was the proviso for the special use zone to be brought in to the Planning Scheme.

Robin 

Asked if there was a plan that showed Toll Port's land and if so could the committee see it.

Lindsay

Replied yes and that Toll own 100 hectares.

ACTION

Lindsay to provide a plan of Toll's land holdings at Geelong Port to Katie for distribution to the TGCCC.

Steve

Stated there was concern form the community about service gaps, where agencies might miss something.  He asked Lindsay if he thought Toll should have and auditing role over its tenants to close out the duty of care.

Lindsay

Said he felt placing the onus on the landlord wouldn't add value to the process as Toll are not experts and it would require consultants to be called in etc. He said there were already zoning and other criteria to be met

Paul

Asked regarding the Tugs, would they be leaving Rippleside or where would they be stored.

Lindsay

Said the tugs were at home at Rippleside and they do not have to move in the next twelve months. He said they are an important Port asset and Toll would try to accommodate them in the Geelong Port somewhere.

John 

Asked about the Toll Ports consultative committee.

Lindsay

Said Toll Geelong Port has a consultative committee, it is a COGG-Ports C.C.C. and he attends that committee.

John

Said the department of infrastructure invited some on the the consultative committee but left a lot of stakeholders out for example aquaculture, farmers, aboriginal groups, tourism and hospitality.  He stated the need for an environmental impact/social impact study as Toll Port effects the whole of Corio Bay.

Lindsay

Said he was happy to discuss this with Mark Curry and Maryanne Richards and suggested that maybe they had struggled with putting a box around the project.  He said when the draft comes out people would have ample opportunity to have a say.

John

Said aboriginals had not had a say or been asked.

Robin

Commented on the broader issue of consultation and thanked Lindsay for his time.

ITEM 5

Further Advice from Barry Seaton of Dow.

Barry

Spoke with regard to Dow's environmental policies and presented extracts from Dow's website. He said that in terms of projects, the policies came in right at the start to determine the costs and make sure the project would comply.

Steve

Asked if standards used the absolute minimum as a base.

Barry

Referred to plants in Thailand and said that while the Thai standards were quite low, Dow had adopted higher International Standards for their facility.

Steve

Suggested the SEPP had not been reviewed in quite a while. He asked what Dow's approach to this was.

Barry

Said the community was educated on these matters and this increased the expectation from the community.

Robin

Stated Dow had a problem with it's reputation years ago and asked if this was a recent policy shift.

Barry

Said Dow's reputation impact needed to be managed.

Sue Mc

Suggested the figures Barry was showing were based on Dow's international profile and asked about Australia-specific figures.

Barry

Said he was not sure where that was at (the figures) or what form it was in.  He said that data came out at Dow's consultative committee meetings.

Robin

Asked if Barry could provide comparative Australian data.

Barry

Said he would see if that was available.

ACTION

Barry to provide Australian data, to complement the information provided on Dow's international profile.

Sue Mc

Said the figures didn't give a good picture about what is happening locally when environmental legislation here is tougher.

Barry

Said Dow report all incidents both global and local.

Sue Mc

Said environmental legislation can define an "incident".

Robin

Asked how deaths were included (in incident figures)

Barry

Stated per 100,000 man-hours, the vast majority were small incidents.

Sue Mc

Said clarification was required as the figures didn't tell about death/injury or the health of the residents.

Robin

Suggested the committee couldn't get much more out of the presentation.

Sue Mc

Asked how Dow assesses the two options of importing butadiene versus latex.

Barry

Said Dow would treat them independently, the scope would be worked out and they would be compared on an economic basis with the environmental policy coming up front.

Sue Mc

Asked how Dow factors in community anxiety and the risk to health.

Barry

Stated that the EPA and other agencies go into the requirements that are needed.

Sue Mc

Asked if she was missing something.

Robin

Asked how the options compared with each other.

Barry

Began to say that to get to the point of making an economic decision[sigma]

Sue Mc

Stated that it was ultimately economics.

Barry

Said they weighed up economic/social/policy issues.

Sue Mc

Stated Dow had not met the community expectations here.

Jon

Asked if Dow was using the costs on all aspects including environmental, social etc.

Barry

Said it is a series of expectations that are costed.

George

Said Terminals were asked for a proposal. Dow came back and asked for a high-pressure sphere but to get through the legislation that was not needed, nor a lot of things that Terminals had to add, through Dow's insistence.

Steve

Stated Dow are suppliers, they don't make carpets. He said the community have not been given the opportunity to make a decision. It was profit being driven by carpet manufacture.

Steve went on to ask about chronic exposure testing with employees.

Barry

Said there is a doctor and nurse on site and a Medical program for employees on site.

Steve

Said the statistics don't cover things that may arise down the track.

Barry

Said the chemical has been around for fifty years and studies would have been done overseas, industry studies.

Col

Stated he represented the residents association and the expansion of Dow and Terminals in Geelong is not wanted.  He said Barry had said previously that he would take that message back to his bosses.

Barry

Barry confirmed that the message had been delivered, and said Dow still think the project is worth doing.

Col

Asked why the community should tolerate the arrogance of Barry's company.

Barry 

Said he didn't know what Col wanted him to say.

John

Said American carpet manufacturers were looking for alternatives to butadiene latex in carpets.  He stated that the Australian carpet manufacturers would have to look for alternatives if they wanted to sell to the States.  He pointed out that Dow may not need the store in the future. John also asked what the difference between silicon and latex tyres was and if butadiene was used in car tyres.

Barry

Said the butadiene Dow uses does not go into tyres but into latex for carpet. He said Dow would look for alternatives but at this stage there was no alternative to butadiene latex.

Paul

Stated that regarding OH&S in the US, if manufacturers used butadiene they would be "clobbered" for it. He asked what Dow is doing in the USA with respect to butadiene.

Barry

Said he didn't believe there was a viable replacement in the USA.

ACTION

Barry to find out if Butadiene is being used in the US by Dow and is it being phased out.

Geoff

Asked Paul to bring in data.

ACTION

Paul to bring in data re the use of butadiene in the USA.

Paul

Asked Barry what would be done about the gap period in the supply of butadiene; if Dow would import or shut down.

Barry

Said the feasibility of bringing in small parcels of butadiene verses importing latex is being investigated.

Paul

Asked about the storage of butadiene if Dow brought in small parcels.

Barry

Said storage would be hard to do, it was in the feasibility stage.

Carlo

Said butadiene would have to go to another site for storage.

Catherine

Asked if the chemical composition of synthetic latex creates a hazard for fire fighters in a house fire.

Barry Foss

Commented on all the plastics in a house.

Col

Asked if there was adequate infrastructure to fight a chemical fire if it happened and stated that neither Terminals nor Dow would pay for it.

Robin

Wrapped up the presentation by Barry Seaton by thanking him.

ITEM 6

Business Arising from Minutes

Robin and Committee

Went through each item on the Action Summary Sheet:

2/1 City of Greater Geelong's Strategic Land Use Plan Committee had already met and several committee members had attended. Robin asked the committee if they wanted him to write to the COGG asking for a rep. from this committee to be on the SLUP committee.

Sue Mc

Said it would have to go back to council in order to change the membership. She said she didn't want to negate it but did say observers could ask questions.

Sue KT

Asked if the committee could ask to have a copy of the SLUP minutes tabled at this meeting.

ACTION

Robin to write to the COGG asking if a copy of their SLUP committee meeting minutes could be tabled at the Terminals GCCC meeting and if their meeting was open to observers.

Robin and Committee

2/2 Re fire fighter from Coode Island: defer to October meeting.

2/4 CFA presentation deferred to September meeting.

3/2 Barry Seaton from Dow presented instead of BASF.

3/6 QEST presentation deferred to September meeting.

3/8 Completed as QEST presentation will cover the rest.

3/10 Gary gave a demonstration of ullage measurement to the committee. Robin to scan and email Gary's summary for inclusion with the minutes.

Carlo

Discussed the on shore/ off shore berthing regulations. Off shore ships coming off during a tempest cause less consequences so the operating rules are not so conservative as they are for on shore.  Operations are based on risk assessment, not on legislation.

Col

Stated the Port of Geelong is open to higher winds than the Port of Melbourne and said the operating rules should not be based on Melbourne wind velocities.

George

Said if the velocity ever got to that point, Terminals would disconnect anyway. Terminals have not ever had to disconnect.

Gary

Said the Port would dictate if ships could not berth. 

Robin and Committee

Geoff M

Re action 5/2 Katie to have two separate email lists, one for those on the mail out list who will receive reminders of meetings and short email updates (eg agenda's), the other list for all who receive everything by email.

5/5  The QRA is a technical report that Terminals commissioned.  It has no conclusions or summary.  Geoff suggested it be tacked onto the presentation by Steven Lewis from QEST at the next meeting. He suggested that regarding Terminals interactions affecting Shell, that a Shell rep be invited to attend a meeting.

Sue Mc

Asked for details of how both Shell and Terminals address the issue of the knock-on effect.

George

Queried a the issue of a VCM BLEVE analysis. He said work had been commissioned in 2002, it was not user friendly but it could be tabled at the next meeting and the QEST rep could be asked about it.

Gordon

Asked Geoff in his capacity as the Terminals' HSE Manager what his conclusion of the report was.

Geoff

Stated his conclusion was that there was no knock on effect to Shell.  He said if there was a large leak, a flammable gas cloud could go into the Shell boundary but it would not be a knock-on effect in a physical sense.

Gordon

Stated there was no butadiene on site when the report was done and asked if having butadiene on site would make a difference to the results.

Geoff

Stated there would be no difference in terms of consequences of a knock-on effect.

Gordon

Asked if the Shell catalytic cracker knock-on was a bigger concern.

Geoff

Said it would be better to get someone from Shell to talk about that.  

Gordon

Asked if the incident of last year had created concern when there was a shut down with the explosion.

George

Said regarding the emergency procedures, that Worksafe had not said anything had been done wrongly.

Sue Mc

Stated that the issue was that the information was dated and was prior to the date of the butadiene application. The Safety Case was only updated every five years. She asked if Shell and Terminals had reviewed their information. 

George

Said he was presuming Worksafe had done what they had to.

Sue Mc

Said the Shell equipment was aging and that a Worksafe report had said it was a major hazard facility. Sue felt Shell were more concerned about preventing a major incident rather than looking at how an incident would effect Terminals.

ACTION

Robin to ask Geoff Cooke if the shut down at Shell had been a potential threat to Terminals.

Gordon

Stated that Terminals now want to do something new and the community could not accept what had been suggested. He said that in terms of risk to the community, Shell and Terminals needed to be brought together to have it out, so that the community could hear it.

Sue Mc 

Suggested writing to Shell to respond to this issue.

Gordon

Asked if Terminals had let Shell know about the VCM leak early last year.

Gary

Replied no.

Gordon 

Said from the point of view of the community, it was necessary to know what the effects of the facilities are at Shell and Terminals. He then asked when Terminals would communicate with Shell.

Geoff M

Replied if there was a major incident or a gas cloud.

Sue Mc

Asked what were the details of notification were in the management system if there was an environmental incident.

Geoff M

Suggested inviting Shell to a meeting with Worksafe present.

ACTION

Robin to ask Shell to present to the Terminals GCCC meeting on the issue of joint assessment of hazardous incidents.

Bill

Asked George if there was a risk procedure for hazardous incidents.

Geoff

Stated there was for incident notification. The EPA was notified.

Gary

Stated that with the VCM leak it was cleaned up in under two hours.

Bill 

Asked if the committee could see the procedures.

ACTION

Geoff Millard to table and discuss emergency procedures at Terminals.

Sue Mc

Stated she was concerned that with priority incidents there was not incident sharing between Shell and Terminals. She was concerned Terminals were not being notified of what may potentially be threatening incidents.

George 

Stated that regarding the Safety Case, if it was updated for butadiene that it would not change things much.

Sue Mc

Said that regarding the issue of spills on the jetty, that Shell had not updated their Safety Case.

Col

Asked what Terminals would do to warn the community when there was a major incident.

Geoff

Said the effects on the community would be communicated by emergency services.

Barry Foss

Said the Police were responsible for warning the community, this may be done by local radio. The CFA would contact the police coordinator, beyond that they have to decide whether to move people.  There was no easy answer but there was a hope of introducing systems for public warning. Now there are sirens as an alert mechanism but hopefully the telephone network system would be next.

Robin

Drew from the Coode Island perspective saying the issue of communication was an important one that had never really been answered. He said in 1999-2000 Terminals started doing some good work, which had been taken over by the office of the Emergency Services Commissioner. A telephone service was trialled, where one dial would ring a whole host of telephones. The problems were money, permissions and keeping numbers updated [^] it was a high cost exercise but a good method if it could be funded.  He said the committee could rely on Barry/George /City of Maribyrnong to present updated information on this.  

George

Said Terminals had the idea and what was happening was promising. The questions were how far do you notify and what advice do you give.

Col

Said the easy solution was don't bring butadiene down here to Geelong.

Gordon

Suggested a community forum was needed. He said it would have been helpful if the EPA had been at this meeting so the concerns could be conveyed to them. He said it was hard to address the possibility of a catastrophic event.  He said the Shell Safety Case should record what effect that would have on other facilities.

Barry Foss

Said there was a history of events but the potential of an explosion was averted in the 1979 crude distillate fire, which caused damage worth $29 million.

Gordon

Said it would be worldwide history if something happened with the cat cracker. He said it was needed to be ensured that both companies were aware.

George

Said the definitive answer would come from Worksafe and Shell.  He said such an incident would only occur if everything lined up to create a disaster but that might not be that realistic.

Gordon

Said the sums had to be done.

Robin

Suggested the community, Emergency Services, EPA, Worksafe, COGG, Shell and Terminals all needed to build on the information from Maribyrnong. He said he would like to see the committee resolve to set up some type of forum to discuss emergency information dissemination.

Sue KT

Sue read a press release she had prepared to the committee and asked if the reps agreed it should be the first press release.

Ralph 

Felt that since nothing had been previously released, it was a big step given the fact that the tasks of the committee had not been covered yet.

Sue KT

Said the 18^th of August was looming fast. She believed Shell hadn't and won't attend the VCAT hearing.

Robin

Stated the community reps as a group could decide if they wanted to say something on their own behalf and that there was nothing to stop them.  He said a routine Media Release modelled on the Coode Island CCC was different to the one read out by Sue.  

George

Said some things in it were OK but some were inaccurate, some he didn't agree with.   He got the impression it was using Terminals as a lever to Shell.

Sue Mc

Raised the point of emergency response.

Robin

Said it was an issue where it was important to seek the willing cooperation of all parties.

George

Said it sounded like something this committee might set itself.  The committee might determine what it might look like then lobby for it. He said it might come out in some other form but it was important to have a picture  to begin with.

Sue Mc

Suggested a workshop/seminar could be set up.

Steve

Stated agencies would dictate what goes on.

Robin

Said that didn't work at Coode Island.  A whole new grasp was taken over technology and companies got together.

Steve

Said the hierarchy in the response could not be downplayed.

Robin

Stated the City of Maribyrnong were the interface for getting into the community.

Bill

Suggested some of the smaller industries are more dangerous than the bigger ones.

Sue KT

Said there had been panic in Heidelberg with the plastics factory fire. She suggested the first response by phone might be to pacify.

George 

Said the safest thing a person could do was to stay indoors. He stated emergency response was a complex issue and that it had to be coupled with the education of the community.

Robin

Suggested this had been a preliminary discussion, not an agenda item and he suggested putting it on the agenda for the next meeting.  He also suggested going with Sue's idea of a workshop.

ACTION

Robin to put the issue of Emergency Communications on the Agenda for September.

John

Asked how volunteer fire fighters were involved in chemical fires.

Barry

Said he would raise it in his presentation.

ITEM 7

Committee Terms of Reference.

Paul

Suggested the term Auspice be taken out completely.

Sue Mc

Asked if something about seeking expert advice could be included.

Gordon

Suggested taking out the section that said the role of the committee members was to contribute to the planning processes for the operation and development of the Geelong plant.

George

Said he wanted the community to understand and be involved, to attend haz ops., ship discharges and make suggestions.

Robin

Suggested the clause said nothing more than that community reps should get involved with issues. He suggested rewording it.

Ralph

Queried open attendance.

Sue Mc

Said generally the same faces come anyway and that if the meeting was closed it could get some noses out of joint.

Robin

Gave the sub committee more time to reword the Terms of Reference.

Sue Mc

Suggested adding and agenda item - Environment Improvement Plan for the next meeting.

Robin

Declared the meeting closed at 10.30pm.

The next meeting is on 12 September in the Corio Library meeting room, Cox Rd Norlane at 6.30pm.

NOTE

http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/ website link provided by John Wilson.