Worksafe

Geoff Cooke

Geelong Community for Good Life

Gordon Alderson

Geelong Community for Good Life

Sue McLean

Joe Cicero

Geelong Community Forum

Sue Kelly-Turner

Geelong Grammar School

Jon Apted (Director of Planning)

Geelong Environment Council

David Henshaw

Special Monitors of Geelong

Franceska Dezalak

Northern Community Consultative Group

Bill Aitken

Paul Dakin

Terminals Pty Ltd

George Horman (Managing Director)

Carlo Fasolino (State Manager)

Angelo Smarelli 

Geoff Millard (HSE Manager)

Jeff Hibbert

Gary O'Sullivan

Sourcing Solutions

Lloyd Holden

Community Representative

Peter Linaker

CFA Geelong

Ian Beswick

Community Representative

Ralph Taylor

Green Party

Catherine Jones

North Shore Residents Group

Margrette Lewis

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Group

John Wilson

EPA

Daniel Calderwood 

Anne Marie McCarthy

Item 1

Welcome by Chair

Robin

Welcomed committee to the final meeting for the year.

Item 2

Apologies, confirmation of Draft Agenda

Apologies were received from the EPA reps, John Wilson and Margrette Lewis. Robin introduced Lloyd Holder from Sourcing Solutions who was invited by Terminals to answer questions about the Bitumen storage proposal.  

The Draft Agenda was accepted with two changes: Presentation by Lindsay Ward from Toll Ports deferred until February.  Chemtrans presentation to be deferred until March.

ACTION

Gary to ensure relevant Chemtrans staff are informed to be at the March meeting.

ITEM 3

Confirmation of Draft Minutes

Minutes confirmed with the following changes: Page 1 [^] delete the asterix of Joe Cicero, as he did not leave the meeting.  Page 4 [^] Daniel Calderwood stated the license would not be granted if the combustor did not comply with environmental laws.  Action 9/13 Ralph Taylor to carry out.

Bill

Stated there were questions of the EPA from the June meeting that still had not been answered. He asked what the compliance of the monitoring equipment at Geelong Grammar School (GGS) was as it had been offline for several weeks.

ACTION

Robin to find out from John Williamson/ Tim Turnbull if the monitoring equipment at GGS is in compliance with NATA, how frequently does the machine have to be calibrated.

ITEM 4

Business Arising from the Minutes

The committee worked verbally through the Action Summary Sheet from November;

Item 6/5 Expunged. Paul to provide data on the use of butadiene in USA to the Committee if he wants to when his computer is back on line.

Joe

Re item 8/3 was concerned about the information QEST used in writing their report.

George

Asked Joe to put his concerns in writing, getting down the specifics and they would be addressed.

ACTION

Joe and Sue to put their specific concerns about the information QEST used in writing their report in writing to George to be addressed.

Action Item 8/4 [^] Carlo had written to Toll but had no reply. 

8/5 Geoff Cooke said Dow had not started to import Butadiene but were importing latex in isotainers that were being delivered to the Melbourne Port and then to Altona. 

Sue Mc

Said Dow had told the Community Liaison Committee they would have a decision in one week. She said this was in the minutes.

Geoff

Said the issue was cloudy and he was not sure as he had not been at the meeting.

Gordon

Asked George for his view regarding Dow and BASF.

George

Said what they do is their business.

Geoff

Said Dow would have to continue to import latex until the facility at Geelong was up and running.

George

Stated that latex production at Dow had ceased and that they were now supplying the market with imported latex but that was not economical for them.  He said they would import Butadiene in containers and store it at Altona.

Franceska

Asked where the latex was coming from.

Geoff

Said he was not certain but thought maybe India.

Catherine

Asked specifically which country the latex was coming from.

ACTION

Geoff to find out what country Dow is importing latex from.

Bill

Asked what tonnage of latex was coming in.

Geoff

Said he was not sure.

8/7 Defer until February Meeting.

8/9 To be presented at this meeting at Item 8.

8/10 Chemtrans deferred to March meeting.

ACTION

Gary to follow up with Chemtrans to ensure they are at the March meeting.

8/11 Geoff to present at Item 11 tonight.

8/12 Sue and Gary to work out a date between themselves. Remove from Action Summary list.

9/1 Done

9/2 Expressions of interest from the committee in the HAZOP process at Terminals.  Robin received expressions of interest from the following committee members; 

Sue McLean, Ralph Taylor, Bill Aitken, Sue Kelly Turner, Peter Linaker and Joe Cicero.

Ralph

Was concerned when George said that interested committee members would only be observers in the process.  He queried what would happen if one of them had a genuine concern or question about the process.

George

Stated that at that stage they would be reviewing the design and would not be able to spend a lot of time explaining things. He said there would be opportunities when people could ask for clarification but that this was not an information exchanging time.

Ralph

Asked where in the process the Terminals GCCC would have the opportunity to question the process.

Geoff M

Stated he would be happy to take comments from the community and answer questions during the process.

Robin

Suggested the HAZOP process was not a time for non-technical people to be asking questions.

George

Stated it was a process for thought and discussion on technical matters.

Joe

Requested Terminals provide information in a timely manner prior to any HAZOP proceedings so that the community could ask questions.

George

Felt there would not be a lot of notice prior to a HAZOP being conducted. He said there might only be a couple of days notice.

Sue KT

Asked if there was any information/data available on decisions being made, whether Terminals could provide it.

George

Said Terminals would make their best endeavours.

Sue Mc

Said she believed Ralph and Joe had enough expertise to understand the technical aspects of decisions being made.

George

Stated they would not participate in but observe the HAZOP, although they could talk to George or Geoff Millard.

Sue Mc

Asked if Terminals could guarantee a process where the community could raise issues they were concerned about.

George

Stated that questions could go through Geoff Millard and be taken up at Terminals GCCC meetings.

Sue

Believed that would be too late to do anything about issues that had arisen.

Robin

Stated that it would be a long process.

Jeff

Said the equipment/piping design would be going for Tender in January.  Orders would be placed now for major equipment and it would be hoped to get it in January.  The HAZOP for the combustor, refrigeration plant etc would be in about the third week of January.

George

Requested that Robin and Katie be included in emails about what is being done.

ACTION

Terminals staff to include Robin and Katie in emails about what is happening with the HAZOP and equipment/design process.

Sue Mc

Said there was concern about the stability of the area the butadiene sphere would be placed.

George

Said that would be taken into consideration in the engineering design phase.

Jeff

Said Terminals were using Paige Green to design the foundations of the sphere and that tests had been done.

George

Said the HAZOP was the process but that the final design was not yet ready for the foundation.  The piles would be put down in late January.

Jeff

Said he would be happy to answer questions about the foundation.

Ralph

Stated the process flow diagrams and the P and ID's should be available for the committee.

Jeff

Said once the parameters had been set out then the tenders would be sent out. The P and ID's would then be sent back by the Tendered company and would then have to be integrated with Terminals processes/system.

Bill

Asked George with such a tight schedule if there was a draft time frame so that the community would know what would be coming up at future meetings.

Jeff

Said he would get a draft to Katie when Terminals realistically expect HAZOP's etc to go ahead.  This was action item 9/3, now for the February meeting.

9/4 To happen at March meeting.

9/5 To happen at February meeting.

9/6 Handout from Geoff Millard

Geoff

Read from the handout, a definition of Incidents and Non Conformance items as follows: 

Terminals defines an incident as an unplanned, unexpected event which has caused, or has potential to cause, injury, fire, spill, release or explosion.  It is company policy that all dangerous, unusual or near miss incidents shall be reported and investigated on a form titled "Incident and Non-Conformance Report".  To provide a one stop investigation report, this definition includes environmental, customer or community complaints, potential insurance claims, Quality non-conformance, financial, and critical control measure failure types of incidents.

Sue Mc

Asked if there was a rating of importance for incidents.

Geoff

Said there was a severity definition; 3 = most severe, 1= least severe.  With environmental incidents, a spill of less than 20 litres would be a 1, 20 [^] 200 litres would be a 2 and over 200 litres would be a 3 rating for all spills in a confined area.  Spills off site would all be a rating 3.

ACTION

Geoff Millard to present in April on the process for reviewing incidents and will include one or two actual incidents in his presentation.

9/7 Re comments on the draft TOR, another version has gone out to be reviewed in 12 months [^] to be raised in Item 7.

9/8 Robin had made changes, drawn attention to these and sent out a new draft TOR.

9/9 Website: February meeting

9/10 Draft Media Release [^] had been sent out by Robin

Peter

Said the draft Media Release was comprehensive but too long.  He said it needed to be oriented to the reader.

George

Agreed it was too long and suggested one page maximum.

Sue K-T

Stated it must contain some information or it was not worth doing.

Robin

Asked if the Website would be up by February.

George

Said he would try.

Robin

Said the draft he had circulated would be the main contents of the first Media release on the website.

9/11 Committee to make comment on the draft of communications for the wider community.

Sue Mc

Suggested relevant contact numbers or radio station number to be included.

Robin

Requested the community members provide their comments to Katie.

ACTION

Community members provide comments to Katie on the draft of communications for the wider community found on page slide9/9 of Geoff Millard's presentation notes from the November meeting entitled In Case of Major Incident.

9/12 Deferred to February Meeting.

George

Stated he had copies of the City or Maribyrnong report on their emergency Management Plan and would bring it to the next meeting.

ACTION

George to bring copies of the City of Maribyrnong report on their emergency Management Plan to the next meeting.

9/13 Bill handed out a copy of the fridge magnet provided by the Hobson's Bay Council stating the Altona Chemical Complex Emergency Communications procedures.

Bill

Suggested one problem was that younger people didn't listen to the community radio.

Sue K-T

Sated that the idea of fridge magnets was to tell people where to get information in an emergency.  She suggested the community should support local radio.

Sue Mc

Asked if there were any community stations that operated 24 hours a day as timely advice would be needed for those in close proximity to an incident.

ITEM 5

Reports from Terminals

George

Said he and Jeff Hibbert had been to Thailand to observe the construction of the butadiene sphere by She Asia who had been subcontracted by Chicago Bridge and Steel.

Gary

Presented the November 2005 Monthly Operations Report. (An attachment to these minutes.)

Franceska

Commented that rotating shift work is very stressful and not ideal for workers.

George

Stated that shift work was necessary.

Sue Mc

Queried the incident with the gas alarm being activated.

Gary

Stated it was an intermittent fault and that out of 25 alarms at the site there were only around ten faults a year.

Ian

Said the CFA could bill Terminals for a call out over a faulty alarm if it happened on a regular basis (although this was not a regular incident). He said being called out three to four times a week for an intermittent fault was unacceptable.

Gary

Said Terminals have had specialists come in but were unable to pinpoint where the fault is.

Carlo

Presented a Bitumen Storage Proposal.  (An attachment to these minutes.) Stating that it was a proposal to install storage tanks for bitumen to be used on such local projects as the Ring Road construction.  

Lloyd

Introduced himself as the Chief Executive of Sourcing Solutions, importing bitumen into Australia for such projects as the Geelong by-pass.  

Robin

Suggested questions follow Carlo's presentation.

Joe

Asked how emissions/vapour would be controlled.

Carlo

Said that was being investigated at this stage.

Joe

Asked about buffer distances between butadiene and VCM storage tanks as the proposed bitumen tanks were in between. 

Jeff

Said a preliminary quantitative risk assessment and fire safety study was being carried out.

George

Said if there was a VCM bund fire that the bitumen tanks would have cooling monitors on them.

Carlo

Stated the location of bitumen storage was to be confirmed.

Bill

Asked what Sourcing Solutions would mix with the bitumen to achieve the required grade of bitumen.

Lloyd

Stated two grades of bitumen would be supplied and their customer would modify it for their needs.

Gordon

Stated that Mobil in Altona found with bitumen storage that the odour was inconsistent.  He asked what odour control facilities would be put in place.

Lloyd

Stated Mobil manufactures bitumen in Singapore but Sourcing Solutions would procure Australian Standard bitumen from Asia, would cut it back and move it here knowing what the sulphur content was.  He suggested this would avoid odour problems.

George 

Explained the two odour sources; the tank and the truck.  He said the tank would vent to the boiler which would run 24/7.  He said it was yet to be tested by design.

Gordon

Asked if the Mobil odour was from splitting diesel out of the bitumen.

Catherine

Said she was allergic to bitumen vapour; it was toxic to her. She said it was the vapour that affected her and that she got sick from the vapour when bitumen was being spread.  She asked what the country of origin of the bitumen would be.

Lloyd

Said the country had not yet been finalised but could be Thailand, India, Singapore; to be finalised in the next three months.

Catherine

Asked if an EPA Works Approval or Planning Permit had been applied for.

George

Stated the Planning Permit would be lodged this week but Works Approval was not required as bitumen is not classed as hazardous goods.  It is compliant with regulations and odours.

Franceska 

Asked if Sourcing Solutions would be competing directly with Shell.

Lloyd

Said the product was for their customers, not Shell's customers.

Peter

Raised the issue of using a burner for the incineration of odours, stating that the burner would have to be of incinerator quality to dispose of the vapours adequately.

Joe

Said there had been a problem at Shell with hydrogen sulphide and he didn't want that happening at Terminals.

Workcover Report

Geoff C

Presented on the Annual Inspection of Terminals Corio (an attachment to these minutes), saying it involved spending three days on site in an intensive inspection.

Bill

Asked how changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act are married with the audit.

Geoff

Stated there was a five year cycle of the safety case.  Went on to discuss the muting of an alarm on the Terminals site due to works being carried out.

Peter

Asked if it was possible for someone to disable an alarm unauthorised.

Geoff

Said on that particular day, the alarm had been easy to mute but muting was not disabling.

Gary

Said a lockable switch had now been installed.

CFA Report

Ian

Referred to the gas alarm incident but said since it came under the Terminals report he would not go into it further as it had been well covered.

ITEM 6

Committee Terms of Reference

Robin

Suggested the latest version be provisional with a review scheduled for November 2006.

Peter

Commended what Robin had done and encouraged the committee to accept his suggestion.

Franceska

Stated her concerns with the Terms of Reference as follows:

Objective 2 [^] She wished to add: and discourage Terminals from expanding.

Objective 3 [^] She stated the Mayor had said he would like to discourage chemicals coming to Geelong.  Franceska was concerned that the council had spent a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer's money trying to stop butadiene coming into Geelong but that it is still coming.  She stated Terminals could not expect the city to use taxpayer's money to keep defending the city against Terminals new proposals.

Robin

Suggested this required changes to the law rather than having fingers pointed at Terminals who are in fact abiding by the law.

Franceska

Stated her belief that there are ethics involved as well. She raised the question on page 2, 4.1: who is paying for the venue.

George

Said the City of Greater Geelong (COGG) don't want to manage industry but want to facilitate communication with the community and Terminals.

Catherine

Said the Council had been voted in to represent the community and she was grateful they did it.

Robin

Suggested everyone would do what they thought was the right thing.

Franceska

Again asked who was paying for the venue.

George

Said the COGG was charging Terminals $150 per night for the venue.  He requested clarification on the COGG's position on the committee; purposes, venue, costs etc.

ACTION

Robin to write to the COGG to seek clarification on what their position is with the committee, providing the facilities, sending a representative; which are council's responsibility.

Franceska

Queried 5.1.6 in the Terms of Reference with respect to supporting the work of Terminals and said she did not want to support Terminals.

Robin

Pointed out that it meant supporting the work of the committee, not Terminals.

Franceska

Stated the following concerns:

6.1 The wording should be insist not assist Terminals

6.3 Franceska does not want to upgrade or increase the facilities

7.2 The twelve month period left no room for changes in the interim

8.1 Sub committees should write reports.

Robin

Suggested there was a clear consensus of reporting arrangements.

Franceska

9.1.4 Asked who decides what is misrepresented as everyone has a different view.

Robin

Said Franceska was quite right, that everyone would have a different view.

George

Stated that with information given to the committee, that the committee had to decide for itself how to deal with information it had been given.

Joe

Said that at another meeting he attended, the Chair had not allowed a journalist to come into the meeting.

Robin

Stated his normal procedure was to ask the journalist to wait outside while the Chair asked the committee what they wanted to do.

Franceska

10.3.7 Stated it was not correct for members to take the burden home.  That the nature of this group was that it was already in conflict.

Robin 

Suggested the committee was here because of conflict. 10.3.7 was about reducing the conflict if possible by getting things on the table for discussion.

Franceska

Suggested withdrawing 10.3.11

Robin

Said he was happy to withdraw it.

Peter

Was concerned it was too hasty to delete 10.3.11 straight away.

Robin

Said he would not quibble but would leave it as it was and review it in twelve months.

Paul

Suggested adopting it for six months and then reviewing it.

Robin

Urged the committee to vote on 10.3.11 after much debate.  

The committee voted to delete 10.3.11.

The committee agreed on adopting the draft Terms of Reference for a period of six months to be reviewed then.

Joe

Suggested the Draft EIP was a major item for the next meting and requested the draft be handed out for the committee to look at prior.

Carlo

Handed out the Draft Environment Improvement Plan (provided as an attachment to these minutes).

George

Stated that since the EPA were not present, it should be discussed at the next meeting in February 2006. 

ACTION

Discussion on the Draft EIP deferred until the February Meeting

Robin

Declared the meeting closed at 9.40pm.

The next meeting will take place on Monday 13 February 2006 at 6.30pm.