Adopted Minutes

Thursday 11 April 2002

PRESENT

Deborah Macfarlane

Acting Chairperson

Martin Jones

CEO / PACIA / committee

Allen Hugli

Chief Financial Officer, Burns, Philp &

Company Limited/CICCC Committee

John Luppino

City of Maribyr, GM City Dev /committee

Michael Ragen

Cash Controller, Burns, Philp &

Co Limited / CICCC Committee

Ian Thomas

community rep./ committee

Bill Horrocks

Mayor / City of Maribyr./ committee

Faye Simpson

community rep./ committee

Ted Towson

community rep./ committee

Dr Peter Brotherton

Combined Enviro. Groups / committee

George Horman

State Man./Terminals Pty Ltd / committee

Michael Isaachsen

community rep./ committee

Trevor Perkins

MF&ESB/ex off comm

Cameron Fitzgerald

Environ. Protec Auth / ex off comm

Quentin Cook

Env. Protection Authority

Bronwyn Brookman Smith

MH Div / WorkSafe

Theo Pykoulas

City of Maribyrnong

Robyn Betts

Office of the Emerg. Services Commiss.

Andrew Clifton

Marstel P/ L Commun. Group

Vanessa Richardson

minute taker

ITEM 1. WELCOME BY THE ACTING CHAIR

Deborah welcomed the committee members and other people attending the CICCC meeting.

ITEM 2. APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from Carlo Fasolino and Robin Saunders.

ITEM 3. CONFIRMATION OF THE DRAFT AGENDA

The draft agenda was adopted.

ACTION. Item 10 will be deferred to another meeting as WorkSafe still require further information from Terminals.

ITEM 4. PRESENTATION BY ROBYN BETTS ON THE RESULTS OF THE COMMUNITY SURVEY FOR THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PILOT STUDY.

See Attachment 1

Robyn said that in this presentation she would cover the activities that have been conducted by the Emergency Alert Project since her last presentation at the CICCC last year and summarise the results from the community survey. She said that she welcomed any feedback from the CICCC.

The review of services will be completed before Christmas. It will go to Ministers Brumby and Broad and then to other interested parties including the CICCC. In the meantime, other activities will continue including the community consultation.

Robyn said the survey of a sector of homes and businesses in the local community resulted in a response rate of 14% - 15%. That is a good result for such a survey. There were 696 responses to 5,000 distributed surveys. Some of the interim findings from the survey include

• 86% of respondents are English speaking. (A specific survey of non-English speaking groups will be undertaken soon.)

• 46% had resided in the area for less than 6 years. So they had not experienced the Terminals P/L Coode Island fire in 1991

• 42% are in this area for most days of the week

• Interactions with neighbours are important to this group

• They do not like the trucks in the area.

• They do not like living close to industrial sites

• They like information in a variety of forms, including brochures and web sites

• They are most concerned about burglaries and chemical odours in the area and they say that they are aware of what can happen if there is an emergency in the area. ( A list of 44 options about ‘risks to homes and personal safety’ was presented to chose from. They were asked to tick which of the options they thought would be ‘possible’ or ‘highly possible’.)

• They were also concerned about any possible future evacuations of their homes and workplaces and concerned about the prospect of staying indoors if directed to do so during an emergency

• Collecting and protecting children during an emergency was also a highly rated concern.

• A significant number of people said they wanted more information about Coode Island.

Robyn said the results of the survey will be useful for the next 2 stages of the project

1. the focus groups

2. individual interviews.

Peter noted that of the questions about ‘perceived risk to person and property’, 3 of the first 5 questions listed involved chemical incidents. When the chemical incidents options were totalled together, he wondered if they rated as more significant then burglary

Robyn said that she had listed them this way so that she could get an indication of whether things like chemical odours were of more or less concern than other chemical hazard issues.

Ian said he thought that another method of questioning was preferable to the tick boxes (and options) used.

George asked if the survey had asked the community about its knowledge of other dangerous goods industry sites (not necessarily positioned on Coode Island) in the area. He cited Orica as an example.

Robyn said that some residents expressed concern about the Mobil facility. She said that people tended to know about and have information about Coode Island when in fact the sirens they hear in the area usually emanate from sites other than those on Coode Island. She said that there are numerous industries in the area that store major hazard goods and that the focus is not the Coode Island industries but all those relevant industries in the area that store major hazard goods.

Robyn said that very few people identified local community radio as an information source about emergencies in the area.

Michael said that Terminals had developed the radio strategy but it was in its early stages of development when the OESC program commenced and consequently the community education process had not been implemented as planned. This had been postponed pending the results of the OESC program. Therefore it is not surprising that only a few people knew of the role of local radio in an emergency.

Robyn said that the survey indicated that people want a warning message and access to ongoing information from a variety of sources/experts to assist them to make the best management choices for themselves in an emergency. They listed services like police and the 000 emergency phone number. She said that the 000-phone number is not suitable and that this issue must be addressed when looking at the plans for a chain of information (formal and informal) that will be required.

Robyn said that the response to the survey had provided good information to start the consultative process. This number of responses about this sort of issue had not occurred previously.

Robyn said that Louise Atherton was employed in Jan 2002 as the Community Education Officer (OESC). Her role is to consult directly with relevant individuals, groups and industries and develop an interface between industry and the community. She reports to Theo and Robyn.

Industry forums have been conducted. They are working on the development of ‘a chain of communication’.

A collaborative Planning Day to develop a strategy that will suit all parties is imminent.

A forum to develop an Education Strategy is planned for June.

An industry Emergency System will be in place in a few months time.

ACTION. Robyn will forward a paper about this system to the CICCC Chair for distribution to the CICCC.

Peter said that the Coode Island Review Panel Report (1992) identified a need to provide appropriate information assistance to the carers for the very young and old (as in schools and hospitals, etc). It is necessary that carers for those groups receive timely and accurate advice as they are often passing on information about the emergency to concerned relatives and friends of those young and old people very quickly if an emergency is perceived.

Robyn agreed that potentially vulnerable groups need to be identified and they must receive accurate information during possible emergencies. She said it is important that they maintain the trust of their constituents. She said that in some ways these larger groups can be easier to manage than individuals who may not do as the authorities have asked them.

Faye asked about the possible background of those facilitating discussion on health issues at the public forums.

Robyn said she will probably use social work students for the role of facilitators and give them a structure to work through.

Faye asked Robyn if she had looked at the Victorian Burden of Disease Studies which gave all the statistics about the health of Victorians. She said that she and Robin Saunders had met previously with staff from the Health Department to discuss relevant issues.

Robyn said she would talk about public health concerns with Dr Paul Van Hindim and others in the Health Department.

Deborah asked if Robyn had said previously that she would cover matters of morbidity in her report.

Robyn said that it could not be ignored.

ACTION. Robyn will have further discussion with Faye about the above issues.

Ian said he thought the survey was excellent.

Robyn said that this program was designed to be ‘bottom up’ in its approach. She said that programs often fail when they are ‘top down’ because it is essential to know what a community wants if a program is to be used optimally by that community. A community will not use what they do not want.

Ian said that industry systems for emergency management must be regulated.

Deborah asked if Robyn would be recommending that they be regulated?

Robyn said she did not have an answer and that it was another major issue.

Theo said that there are enough regulations already and that the OESC have enough to do already.

ACTION. Robyn said she would talk to the CICCC about this issue in the future.

Faye asked about community education on TV like that used by the CFA and Police Departments. She said that they are designed to stimulate public discussion of issues and to change behaviour. She asked if something similar could be actioned quickly for the community.

Robyn said that the elements were already included in Municipal Planning regimes.

Bronwyn said that the Major Hazard Regulations require industries to prepare Emergency Response Plans (ESP) in conjunction with Local Government/s and the Emergency Services. If industry fails to meet the requirements of the regulations they may not get a Major Hazard Facility licence.

Deborah said it was of concern that the regulations said nothing about the need to communicate with the community in the event of an industrial emergency (see Regulation 505 of the MHF Regs.).

Trevor said that the Metropolitan Fire & Emergency Services Board were presently further developing an existing system by providing specific information to be used by the Police Advice Lines during such an emergency.

Ian said that if an emergency arises companies want to hide from the public the fact that a possible emergency has occurred. Regulations would ensure that they communicate appropriately with the community.

Robyn thanked the CICCC for its input to the development of the OESC plan.

Deborah thanked Robyn for her presentation to the CICCC.

ITEM 5. BRIEF REPORT FROM AGENCIES AND TERMINALS ON KEY ISSUES

See Attachment 2.

Cameron gave a presentation of results from the Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Program.

AWN was contracted by the EPA to do the air monitoring. However, the data on pp 2.11 is a combination of data collected from this study and similar earlier separate studies.

The study found that there were elevated levels of some chemicals in the samples taken. However, when prevailing wind directions were included in the analysis of the data it was shown that Terminals P/L on Coode Island are not contributing to any elevated levels of dangerous chemicals to air emissions at the sampling sites.

George said that Terminals do not store (on Coode Island) many of the chemicals that were tested for in this study.

Some air contaminants do not have EPA set Elevation Levels. Elevated levels of 1.7 ppm of toluene and benzene were recorded but the source is unknown and is presently being investigated by the EPA. They are usually due to vehicle emissions but that is not the case with these readings.

Peter suggested that it might be a result of illegal fuelling operations where toluene (which does not attract a government excise tax) is mixed with petrol.

Faye asked if the information from this report was shared with other government departments.

Cameron said it would be passed onto the interdepartmental working group which manages these matters (with members from EPA, WorkCover, MFESB et al)

Bronwyn said that WorkSafe meets regularly with other agencies re Major Hazards facilities in the state to pass on information.

Cameron said that no acrylates were detected in the samples. Overall levels of benzene, toluene and xylene were well below the set Intervention Levels.

He said that there was a reading of methyl bromide that exceeded the intervention level by a large amount on one day. He said this chemical is used for fumigating and is ozone depleting. This was therefore viewed very seriously, but it should be noted that Terminals do not store this chemical on Coode Island.)

Faye thanked the EPA for investigating the source for the methyl bromide as it is a carcinogen.

Faye asked if the positioning of the OPSIS in an east west direction had been an ideal positioning for monitoring possible Terminals emissions?

Cameron said that it was ideal given the wind directions in the area.

Bronwyn said that Operational Health & Safety officers at WorkSafe recently carried out a routine inspection of the Terminals site. They will finalise their report on receiving some further detailed information from Terminals re the number of tanks currently fitted with remote operated valves.