TGCCC Adopted Minutes 9 November 2009
TERMINALS GEELONG
COMMUNITY CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
Adopted Minutes of the Meeting
Held in the Meeting Room, Corio Library, Norlane
Monday 9th November, 2009
Present:
Robin Saunders Chair
| Community Representative |
Greg Postuma John Wilson Pam Edwards Peter Linaker Bill Aitken Suz Kelly-Turner Sue McLean Jo Cicero Franceska Desalak |
| Terminals Pty Ltd |
George Horman Gary O'Sullivan Carlo Fasolino Susan Chatterton (Minute Taker) |
| CoGG | Lyndon Ray |
| Environment Protection Authority |
Marc Cassanet Dung Nguyen |
| ITEM 1. WELCOME BY THE CHAIR |
| Robin | First off let me welcome Marc Cassanet and Dung Nguyen from the EPA, Marc is the Client Manager for Terminals both here at Geelong and at Melbourne. Dung is here to talk about the draft accredited licence and Marc to talk about the new EPA structure. |
| ITEM 2. APOLOGIES & CONFIRMATION OF DRAFT AGENDA |
| Apologies | Catherine Jones, Geoff Millard, Ralph Taylor and Jon Apted |
| Agenda |
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| Peter Linaker | Raised questions about the time allotted to Item 4, Item 7 and Item 10 and who was going to be talking to the committee. |
| Robin | Explained whatever time required to discuss an item would be allowed for discussions to take place and that general discussion amongst committee would be taken into account. |
| Sue McLean | Requested Item 8 follow Item 5 as there was a correlation between the two items. |
| Robin | Agreed and adopted |
| ITEM 3. CONFIRMATION OF THE DRAFT MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 31 AUGUST, 2009 |
| Robin | The first major item on our Agenda is the confirmation of the draft minutes. |
| George | Just a mention as to why Sue Chatterton is now doing the minutes please Robin |
| Robin | Sue has been doing the minutes at the Coode Island Community meetings for some 5 years now. The process of the minutes is that Sue sends the draft minutes to me for confirmation, I then make any changes that I think are required, and then email to the members of the committee still as a draft. Anyone can nominate changes that they believe are necessary to improve the minutes, and those suggested changes will be discussed and either adopted, varied or rejected at the following meeting by the Committee as a whole. You will recall that Terminals had engaged an independent Minute Taker via an agency but the agency was not always able to send the same person due to personnel being given other full time assignments. The situation became unworkable so I approached Terminals. |
| Franceska | George why did you feel the need to bring that up? Did you feel there was a conflict of interest? |
| George | I just did not want people to find out later that Sue is an employee of Terminals. |
| Robin | You will recall at the last meeting we did not have a Minute Taker so I therefore had to do the minutes myself. There were a number of changes that Peter wanted made to the minutes. I have amalgamated the changes into the latest version of the minutes and will go through them and invite other comments from the committee. |
| Peter Linaker | There is a normal standard procedure in the case of minutes. If the members disagree with the minutes they move an amendment otherwise they accept the draft minutes that were sent early in September. I suggest we not have a long discussion on this matter. |
| Robin | Thanked Peter for his suggestion. In view of the need to take a number of Peter's suggested changes to the draft minutes individually, Robin took the meeting through the changes sequentially. Nearly all of Peter's suggestions were adopted, with a few places where the original version was maintained. |
| Robin | Are there any other issues that the committee wishes to make to the minutes? We will adopt those minutes with the changes as discussed and with the attachments that were tabled on the night |
| ITEM 4 BUSINESS ARISING FROM MINUTES - Review Action List | |
| Action 31/5 | Port Plan Planning Scheme Amendment (PSA) |
| Lyndon Ray | Has been lodged for authorisation to exhibit planning amendment. Definitely moving forward. |
| Action 36/3 | Butadiene Isotainer |
| Carlo | No further progress on the 30A application for emptying the damaged BASF butadiene isotainer. Isotainer is still sitting in FBT yard in Melbourne with nothing more to report. |
| Action 38/3 | Draft Accredited Licence |
| Robin | No further advice has been provided by EPA on the progress of Terminals' Accredited Licence. Will hear more about this shortly in meeting Agenda Item 5. |
| Action 40/1 | 1500m plan Done 31/08/09 |
| Action 40/2 | Schedule of 2010 meetings Done 31/8/09 |
| Action 41/1 | Letter to Cheryl Batagol - done |
| Action 41/2 | Letter inviting Marc Cassanet to committee meeting - done |
| Action 41/3 | Circulating Section 10 of Terminals Emergency Management Plan - Done 1/9/09 |
| Action 41/4 | Telephone notification to Geelong Grammar |
| Carlo | As per Jon's email he would like any incident at Geelong to be notified to Geelong Grammar. I take that to indicate any incidents that happen on site then the Grammar is to be informed. |
| George | Jon has told the parents that if there was an incident at Terminals then he would be notified. |
| Gary | The reason why he wants to be notified is that if the parents see fire engines parked out the front they contact him to find out why. |
| John Wilson | His main concern was that if parents see the fire engines out the front they contact him and if he hasn't been notified he finds it embarrassing that he does not have an answer to their questions. So therefore any incident that happens at Terminals should be notified. |
| George | If the fire brigade turn up then the parents are going to be concerned so these incidents should be reported to the Grammar. |
| Robin | I think the clear message is that the committee believes they wish Terminals to make contact with Jon whenever Terminals feels incident might cause concern to the Grammar. |
| John Wilson | You have a school with a lot of students and rumours spread like bush fires. My suggestion is that Terminals keep Geelong Grammar in the loop. |
| Carlo | Agreed |
| Action 41/5 | Review of Section 10 put on Agenda for tonight's meeting - Done |
| Action 41/6 | Protocols for transport of Butadiene samples |
| Carlo | I have spoken to Frank Fleer at AWN - Golders (the people that do the sampling) who confirmed atmospheric samples (which require the use of a SUMO canister) are not being taken: they are actually doing stack sampling which are being taken on activated carbon. They are using what they call a US NIOSH procedure. The samples on activated carbon are a lot more concentrated, and samples are taken away and heated up for testing. The samples therefore do not require refrigeration. The process is a NATA certified process. |
| Sue McLean | Can we make an agenda item for the next meeting and the issue of how samples of Butadiene are analysed. Can there be a presentation by Frank Fleer regarding methodology of sampling? |
| Robin | Sue has made a suggestion that we have Frank Fleer make a presentation at the next meeting. Is that something that you can organise Carlo? |
| Carlo | I will ask Frank and see what is involved. The results of the sampling are put in the Operations Report. |
| Robin | Might be useful to ask Frank what was the procedure âo[ogonek]beforeâo[caron] and how it is performed âo[ogonek]nowâo[caron]. |
| ACTION | Sue McLean to send Carlo an email in point forms regarding her concerns with the sampling, and Carlo to arrange a brief presentation by Frank Fleer. |
| ITEM 5. Dung Nguyen TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT ACCREDITED LICENCE | |
| Robin | Then invited Dung Nguyen to make her presentation. |
| Dung Nguyen | I am part of the Statutory Facilitation Unit within the EPA, we look after the approvals side of the EPA, planning referrals and licences. |
| Sue McLean | Why is the EPA taking so long to issue the amended accredited licence, Terminals have been waiting for two years? |
| Franscesca | I would like to know why when I went to my phone book that my regional EPA phone number is not in the phone book. Why are we not listed. |
| Dung Nguyen | Dung explained some of the concerns being raised did not form part of her position responsibilities and wrote down the items mentioned for reference and follow up. Concerns raised are listed below: |
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| Dung Nguyen |
There are 4 things that the company must show to be happening prior to a licence being issued. Whether the company currently has an Environment Management System (EMS) Need to have an Environment Improvement Plan and must be involved in the Community for Community Consultation Environmental compliance history - incidents, compliance to licences Environmental Audit Program involving an independent appointed environmental auditor. |
| Dung Nguyen | The main benefits in having an accredited licence are reduced fees, and licences end up being more streamlined. The EPA is aiming towards licence reform to actually starting looking at making licences a lot better to manage. |
| John Wilson | Does this mean that the system is heading towards self regulation? |
| Dung Nguyen | No, not correct at all. The accredited licence still requires an Annual Performance Report except that the Annual Performance Report must now include what the auditors found, what the EMS auditors found and on going systems. |
| Sue McLean | Would it be possible for you to prepare a document outlining your presentation her tonight and email it to us? |
| Dung Nguyen |
Dung indicated it was not immediately possible as she was given short notice to speak about the licence and did not make any notes.
(Note: Dung subsequently emailed a Power Point presentation on 13/11/09 covering the material she presented, together with a more generic treatment of the Accredited Licence process, and those documents have been circulated to members.) |
| Sue McLean |
One of the things that you have just stated is one of the main corner stones of the licence, which is to be involved with the community. Another being the Annual Performance Report which is the one major indicator of the overall environmental performance of the site. This information that we have been given does not gel with the information given by the EPA. The EPA policy direction in terms of community consultation groups has not changed per say. Yet the EPA is no longer sending an EPA representative to these meetings. So what you are now saying does not gel with reality. |
| Marc Cassanet | With reference to the restructure. I will be addressing that during my presentation. The EPA encouraged engagement between the community groups and company. But the reality is that the EPA has now stopped their involvement in such groups. |
| Suz Kelly Turner | The process of community consultation was driven by the EPA. |
| Carlo | The Annual Environmental Performance report is on the website for 2007/2008 which has only just been finished and received back from the EPA. 2008/2009 will be put on the website once I receive it back from the EPA. |
| Dung Nguyen | Another benefit to the company to conduct these audits is the audit reports are made available on the website. |
| George | We always make these reports available. |
| Robin | Terminals has advised the audit reports will be provided at the same time that they are submitted to the EPA. |
| Dung Nguyen | The Works Approval process itself traditionally is required when there is a change to the process involving an increase in emissions or waste disposal. |
| ACTION | Robin to email the draft licence to members. |
| Robin | We need to establish a timetable for the community to make comments on the draft licence by end of year. Those comments will be forwarded onto Carlo and then at February meeting we will get feedback. |
| Sue McLean | It is up to the committee to get together and liaise with the EPA. |
| Dung Nguyen | I would appreciate one person to compile queries and present to EPA. |
| ACTION | Sue McLean to have people interested in commenting on the draft Accredited Licence contact her and provide advice, and then to prepare a consolidated list of comments and present to the EPA |
| Gary |
Was asked by Robin to read out the email sent to Carlo from the EPA as copies below: Rules that will now be applied in relation to the TGCCC and CICCC are:
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| Franscesca | I do not agree with this. |
| Robin | Asked Marc to confirm that this is EPA's view. |
| Marc Cassenet | Yes. Community and Stake Holder Engagement Unit conducted a review. A decision was made that we withdraw from attending these meeting. It is now up to Terminals to engage with their community rather than the EPA. |
| ACTION | Concerned that the action of the EPA of withdrawing their attendance, and prescription on the way we contact EPA, could be unworkable, and contrary to good communication. A letter to go to the Chair of EPA. Need to emphasise that we take this very seriously, and including a compilation of issues that we want further clarification on. |
| ITEM 6. MARC CASSANET TO PRESENT ON THE NEW EPA STRUCTURE | |
| Robin | Then invited Marc to make his presentation. |
| Marc Cassanet |
A big part of the restructure is how we better manage our resources. Marc then started his power point presentation and spoke on the following:
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| Marc Cassanet | Annual Performance Reports must be signed off by the CEO of the company so therefore that generates a lot more responsibility back on client. The EPA is bringing in a model that is more like the Tax Department whereby it puts more trust in clients and puts onus back on clients to comply. The restructure has seen the segregation of roles and responsibilities. |
| Robin | Can you please email me your presentation? Also is there any way you can provide staff number breakdowns within the structure. |
| John Wilson | The EPA used to have community consultations but have now backed right away from those. The EPA has now distanced themselves from that role. |
| Marc Cassanet | The EPA is working with groups such as PACIA to partner with them to get a better environmental outcome. |
| Sue McLean | The presentation is more on service delivery than on consultation with the community. |
| George | Cheryl Batagol agreed to attend the meeting. Can we invite her to attend next year? |
| ITEM 7. EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION - CHANGES FOLLOWING REVIEW AND COMMENTS ON 31 AUGUST 2009 | |
| George | With regards to Section 10 of Terminals Emergency Plan - Terminals are going to adopt the last draft. We are currently looking into the Emergency Number, but think we will be adopting the changes with that number and putting the matter to bed. |
| Robin | Asked members for a general consensus on the matter and it was agreed for Terminals to go ahead with the changes to the Emergency Plan. |
| ITEM 8. TERMINALS ANNUAL PERFORMANCE REPORT 2007-8, 2008-09 | |
| Sue McLean | We need 20 minutes for Item 8 on the next agenda at the next meeting. |
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Deferred until February 2010 meeting |
| ITEM 9. REPORTS FROM TERMINALS, EPA, CFA, CITY OF GREATER GEELONG. | |
| TERMINALS | |
| Robin | Can we take the Terminals report as written and distributed? |
| All | Agreed |
| George | Only one thing that is not mentioned on the report is that Geelong Port has renewed Terminals lease until 2047 and has imposed a lot more environmental constraints. |
| CoGG | |
| Lyndon | Nothing to advise beyond the update on Action Item 31/5 reported above under Item 4. |
| ITEM 10. CHEMICAL SAFETYPUBLIC NOTICE (Peter Linaker) | |
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Deferred until February 2010 meeting |
| ITEM 11. OTHER BUSINESS | |
| Peter | I would like to defer my items to next meeting. |
| Deferred until February 2010 meeting | |
| ITEM 12. CLOSE | |
| Robin | I will not be at the next meeting and I will be putting out the Agenda for the next meeting shortly. |
| Meeting closed 6:50pm | |
| Next meeting will be held 8 FEBRUARY, 2010 at 3:30 for 4:00pm | |
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The 2010 meeting dates are: 12 April, 14 June, 9 August, 11 October, 13 December (Note: these dates are for the second Monday of the month.) | |