Geelong Community for Good Life

Sue McLean

Joe Cicero

Geelong Community Forum

Sue Kelly-Turner

Special Monitors of Geelong

Franceska Dezalak

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Group

John Wilson

Terminals Pty Ltd

George Horman (Managing Director)

Geoff Millard (HSE Manager)

Gary O'Sullivan

Community Representative

Peter Linaker

CFA Geelong

Ian Beswick

Community Representative

Ralph Taylor

Community Representative

Greg Postuma

Northern Community Consultative Group

Bill Aitken

Geelong Grammar School

Jon Apted (Director of Planning)

EPA

Anne Marie McCarthy

Green Party

Catherine Jones

Terminals Pty Ltd

Jeff Hibbert

Carlo Fasolino (State Manager)

Worksafe

Geoff Cooke

North Shore Residents Group

Margrette Lewis

Geelong Community for Good Life

Gordon Alderson

Northern Community Consultative Group

Paul Dakin

City of Greater Geelong

Steve Sodamaco

Item 1

Welcome by Chair

Robin

Welcomed committee to the meeting

Item 2

Apologies, confirmation of Draft Agenda

Apologies were received from Carlo Fasolino, Jeff Hibbert, Jon Apted, Catherine Jones, Anne Marie McCarthy, Margrette Lewis, Geoff Cooke, Paul Dakin, Gordon Alderson and Steve Sodamaco. Robin read a precis of the letter from COGG dated 19 April 2006. (Attached to minutes.)

George

Expressed his dissatisfaction that the COGG were again not present at the meeting given that the committee was set up at the direction of the COGG. He emphasised the requirement that a representative be present. He urged Robin to encourage a representative to attend.

Peter

Stated that the community depend on the city rep to be here.

Ralph

Requested that the issue be put in writing in a letter to the COGG.

Bill

Stated within the city's environment department there would be one of eight people who could attend each meeting.

ACTION

Robin to phone Steve Sodamaco and write to the COGG to encourage a COGG representative to attend the TGCCC meetings. Point out the responsibility the COGG has to the community, the issues of cooperation and team-work and the fact that there are planning issues where the COGG would benefit from information disseminated at this meeting in order to make informed decisions.

Sue KT

Stated there was a responsibility to the community for each agency to be present at meetings. She said that the EPA's non-attendance disadvantaged the community's attempts to formulate the EIP. She requested a letter be sent to the EPA and Workcover as well as the COGG.

Robin

Suggested Workcover attending one in three meetings was reasonable. He pointed out that the EPA has their own problems and suggested a carrot rather than a stick approach.

Sue KT

Suggested a quarterly report from Workcover but noted that the community were concerned to formulate the EIP and this demanded the presence of the EPA.

George

Stated that Terminals were applying for an accredited licence. A company had to satisfy requirements that it had an EIP, or be working towards one, and a community consultative process. Because Terminals have both George felt they should apply.

Robin

Said Carlo had spoken to Anne Marie McCarthy from the EPA regarding the EIP.

Sue Mc

Said she had also spoken to Anne Marie and that the EPA had not perceived the suggested EIP would be a problem. She said Anne Marie had been unwell and that there was also an immense problem and a huge issue with staffing at the EPA. She said another person had resigned from the EPA at Geelong. Sue went on to point out that one of the benefits of an accredited licence for Terminals would be that the EPA would not require a Works Approval. (After the meeting Robin clarified with Anne-Marie that EPA would retain discretion on the need for any WA, depending on the nature of the proposal.)

George

Stated that as community consultation was a cornerstone of the EPA it would be a high priority of the EPA to attend the TGCCC meetings but understood that the Geelong Office was seriously undermanned at the moment.

John

Said that with Council offices where there were paid councillors, they should be asked to attend meetings. He asked how they would make informed decisions without understanding the concerns of industry and the community. He stated that by attending meetings they would have a much better idea of what was going on.

ITEM 3

Confirmation of Draft Minutes

Minutes were accepted providing the following changes be made:

Page 5 in Peter's second comment the word "process" is changed to "participants".

Page 5 in Sue Mac's first comment that 'Works Approval" is changed to "Planning Application".

ITEM 4

Draft EIP (Terminals' outline to be expanded: comment by EPA, Committee)

Sue Mc

Stated Anne Marie had received an updated version from Carlo that the committee had not seen. Sue also passed a hand written series of comments to Gary for consideration.

ACTION

Gary to distribute by mail and email via Katie the updated version of the EIP once the comments received at the June meeting had been considered.

ITEM 5

Business Arising from Minutes

The committee went through each of the Action items from the summary:

9/4 CFA to bring Chemical Biological Radiological detection equipment used for hazardous chemical spills to a future meeting to show the committee. (To be removed from the Action List until Ian is able to bring it. Ian to note this as pending.)

11/2 Geoff Millard on QEST information - Geoff presented to the committee the purpose of the QRA as a safety tool. He presented information as to how the QRA looks at the big picture, the macro scene of safety.

Sue Mc

Stated she was not satisfied that Geoff's presentation had addressed her concerns, as she did not believe the issues she had raised had been dealt with in either the QRA or the Hazop. She said the concerns of the community were not being addressed.

George

Stated that Terminals had complied with the law and were within the parameters of acceptable risk. He suggested Sue was talking about the law but that Terminals had complied with the major hazard facility regulations where they had to eliminate or reduce the risk as much as possible.

Sue Mc

Stated she was referring to the COGG planning permit assessment.

George

Said the City said it had to comply with legislation and that Geoff Cooke should respond to Sue's issue.

Sue Mc

Said there were statutory obligations on the COGG and they have other avenues to determine if everything is all right. A consultant could determine if a risk assessment was acceptable.

John

Said Terminals facilities are young but Shell has an aged facility. He said the risk comes from Shell and he was sure that there would be a knock on effect if an incident occurred at Shell.

Peter

Expressed concern that the crowded nature of the Terminals installation did not appear to have been factored into the QRA and neither did the condition of the facility. He asked what the factors involved in the QRA assessment were and said they had not all been included.

Geoff

Stated the QRA was one of many tools used for safety. He said it was the big picture scenario to look at anything outstanding.

George

Stated a leak would be seen before it got through the boundary fence. He said it was unlikely it would be immediate and without warning. There would be sirens etc and with a BLEVE many things would have occurred prior.

Sue Mc

Requested seeing the recent Hazop minutes so that the community could outline their concerns.

George

Stated the community could read them but it would not be a public document. He said he would organise for the minutes to be made available.

ACTION

George to make the recent Hazop minutes available to be read by the committee members who requested it.

Robin

Suggested the community reps single out one issue from the QEST QRA for a detailed presentation by Terminals.

ACTION

Community representatives to nominate an issue arising from the QEST QRA, and Terminals to provide a detailed response to that issue.

12/4 Steve absent, Robin to follow up.

12/5 George to invite Kevin Garde.

George

Said he had looked into facilitators for the emergency response meeting and had two names; Paul Jerome from the SES would facilitate for free while David Goldbeck (ex SES now Rescue Tech) would charge $4000. He suggested since both were unavailable until August that the Emergency Response meeting be deferred until 14 August.

The committee agreed to defer the Emergency Response meeting until August.

Robin

Suggested Carlo contact Kevin Garde.

Ian

Said that the instruction from the CFA was that he was not to participate in such a meeting if it was to be open slather from the community as it may become out of control.

12/7 Will not be implemented at this stage, in line with decision to first run the Emergency Management meeting in-house as a trial.

12/13 Bitumen odours - presented at this meeting.

George

Stated he was in receipt of the odour testing and modelling information only one week ago so Terminals did not have time to prepare its presentation and circulate the presentation prior to the meeting. He stated that Terminals had not yet lodged a WA application but were in discussions with the EPA re its requirements and content. The EPA's main concern was odour and that the Works Approval application would not be lodged without this feedback.

George presented to the committee on Terminals Proposed Bitumen Odour Control. He handed out a nine-page PowerPoint presentation (copies are available on request from Terminals).

Bitumen vapours will go to the combustor during ship unloading, movement of product from main tanks to day tanks, and truck loading;

At the worst case of ship unloading at 200 cubic metres per hour, expected tank vapour space concentrations were: Odour units (3,000,000), Hydrogen Sulphide (1,600 mg/m³) and Benzine (9.4 mg/m³)

With the proposed odour control measures (use of the combustor), the maximum predicted ground level concentrations would be from 1 to 2 orders of magnitude less that the Design levels for the Odour, Hydrogen Sulphide and Benzene.

13/1 Gary still to contact Chemtrans

Sue Mc

Stated it was a requirement of the Works Approval that Terminals have made their best efforts to ensure the proposed truck routes are as per the Planning Permit. She stated if there was not enough endeavour to ensure this the matter could go back to VCAT. Sue asked Terminals to provide some documentary evidence to demonstrate they had used their best endeavour.

Geoff M

Stated Terminals was still consulting with the client who would sign up the transport company so the matter had not been finalised.

Robin

Stressed to Gary it was now urgent that he gets in touch with Chemtrans.

13/2 Terminals to review the ten-year inspection period. Terminals provided the AS/NZS 3788:2001 Standard to the committee to show the nominal inspection period was ten years and that the extended period was 12 years.

ACTION

Terminals to provide a copy of the report looking at the methodology of decommissioning Butadiene. (The report has already gone to the EPA)

13/3 EIP Ongoing

13/6 Gary advised that Karen Sherlock had discussions with the Heads of three local schools. They are to advise her further in the near future.

Franceska

Stated that she was uncomfortable that Terminals was encouraging schools to become involved as she felt it was an exploitation of the children by glorifying an industry that could be harmful to them. George explained that it was an initiative that came from the community representatives on the TGCCC.

14/1 Done

14/2 Done

14/3 Defer - await Anne Marie

14/4 Done

14/5 Robin stated no committee members had advised him of reports they wished to appear on the website as yet.

14/6 Geoff to address Sue's concern that the severity ratings need to relate to both human injury and environmental impact. Geoff presented a revised list of severity rankings to the committee.

The committee suggested some changes of wording; to the Major ranking it was suggested the wording be Catastrophic environmental impact off site and/or on site.

To the Moderate ranking the wording suggested was Injury requiring medical attention.

Sue Mc

Asked how Terminals take into account incidents of major environmental impact.

Geoff

Said the severity rankings are applied at the analysis stage for data entry. Terminals do not want to rate an incident based on how the media look at it but for Terminals purposes.

Peter

Asked if an incident is notifiable, where it falls in the scale of ranking.

Geoff

Said it is not a straightforward procedure. He said any spill of any quantity has to be notified to emergency services.

ITEM 6

Report from Terminals

George

Reported that the commissioning of the Butadiene sphere would take place around mid September.

Gary

Presented the Terminals Monthly Operations Report for May 2006. He noted with the false alarm incidents where the CFA attended, that it might have been a fault of the power supply lines.

John

Stated the Terminals site was not a dust free area. He asked how often the electricity lines get cleaned.

Gary

Said twice per year.

Sue Mc

Stated under the licence requirements VCM monitoring had to occur and asked when this would happen. She also stated on the VCAT order sheet that background monitoring of Butadiene had to take place in May 2006. She pointed out that NATA accredited testing would be required.

George

Said Frank Fleer would carry out the butadiene monitoring and would be NATA accredited. He said Frank was currently being organised to carry out the testing.

Sue Mc

Stated the community's wish to be involved and said allowing the community to observe would go a long way to stop any challenge.

ACTION

Gary to liase between Frank Fleer, Sue McLean and Carlo to determine when the background butadiene monitoring would occur and how the community could be involved.

Sue Mc

Said that monitoring in schools was being undertaken and asked if Frank Fleer had contacted schools.

George

Said Carlo would know better the answer to that.

Sue Mc

Pointed out that the Ausplume modelling had to be done the day prior to monitoring. She also stated that five rounds of monitoring had to be conducted prior to the commissioning of the butadiene sphere and the results had to be reported back to the TGCCC.

George

Said he would sort the issue out and have a proposal prior to the next meeting.

ACTION

Terminals to present a monitoring/reporting proposal at the next meeting.

CFA REPORT

Ian

Said a CFA appliance attended Terminals but it had been a false alarm. He said after the false alarm Terminals got a sheet asking them to rectify the fault otherwise they would have to pay. He said the issues have been addressed and dealt with by Terminals but noted that often this does not happen with other companies.

ITEM 13

Media Release

Robin

Advised that the committee needs to focus on the issuing of media releases, and give the matter priority, now that the website is up and running.

The committee agreed that the next meeting on July 10 will be a normal meeting and that the meeting on August 14 will be the Emergency Communications Meeting. The committee also decided that the meeting scheduled for November 20 would be cancelled and replaced by a meeting on December 4 being the last meeting for the year.

ACTION

Gary to cancel the venue booking for November 20 and confirm a booking for December 4.

Robin

Declared the meeting closed at 9.30pm

The next meeting will take place on Monday 10 July 2006 at 6.30pm at the Corio Library meeting room, Cox Rd Norlane.