1
1
1
Minutes
Thursday 13 December 2001
1
1
PRESENT
1
1
Robin Saunders
Chairperson
Ian Thomas
community rep./ committee
Bill Horrocks
City of Maribyr. Councillor/committee
John Luppino
City of Maribyr, GM City Dev /committee
Faye Simpson
community rep./ committee
Jarrod Edwards
WorkCover/ ex off comm
Trevor Perkins
commander /MF&ESB/ex off comm
Deborah Macfarlane
community rep./ CICCC committee
Carlo Fasolino
Op. Manager Terminals / committee
Ted Towson
community rep./ committee
Michael Ragen
Cash Controller, Burns, Philp & Company Limited/CICCC Committee
Dr Peter Brotherton
Combined Enviro. Groups / committee
George Horman
Terminals Pty Ltd / committee
Michael Isaachsen
community rep./ committee
Cameron Fitzgerald
Environ. Protec Auth / ex off comm
Allen Hugli
Chief Financial Officer, Burns, Philp &
Company Limited/CICCC Committee
Joan Thomas
observer
John Leahy
Manager, Tenancy Projects, Melb. Ports Corp.
Ahsan Aziz
Project Manager, Melb Ports Corp.
Quentin Cooke
EPA, West Metro. Region
Vanessa Richardson
minute taker
1
1
ITEM 1. WELCOME BY THE CHAIR
Robin Saunders welcomed the committee members and other people attending the CICCC meeting.
ITEM 2. APOLOGIES
Apologies were received from Allen Hugli and Trevor Perkins who would be arriving late. Michael Isaachsen and Cr Bill Horrocks arrived straight from other Council meetings. Ian Thomas said he would have to leave the meeting at 7pm.
ITEM 3. CONFIRMATION OF THE DRAFT AGENDA
The draft agenda was adopted.
ITEM 4. MPC SECURITY (AHSAN AZIZ)
Ahsan said that the gate house was installed on Coode Island for security purposes in line with the Coode Island Review Panel recommendations following the fire in 1991. The Melbourne Port Corporation (MPC) funds the annual costs of operating the gate house.
The MPC have recently commissioned a Risk Assessment of security on Coode Island Some of the suggested upgrades include
• better lighting
• 24 hour camera surveillance
• Closed Circuit Television (CCT) monitoring at the Gate House
(24 hours per day)
• warning signs to discourage the general public from using the area.
All the tenants on Coode Island have been consulted and they are supportive of the proposed improved security plans. Tenders for this work closed last week and the work is expected to be completed in May/June 2002.
Peter said that he was concerned when he recently passed through the Gate House without even being questioned by the person on duty.
Ahsan said that the MPC shared Peter’s concerns and that is why they funded a Risk Assessment of security on Coode Island. He said that the CCT will function more effectively than the gate house which will probably be removed after an assessment of the upgrade has been finalised. He said that in addition to these proposals, each company on CI have their own security arrangements for their sites. The cost of the improvements will be about $250,000.
Ian said that the public should be able to have access to the island and in particular to the Picnic Point area for recreational uses.
George said that Terminals did not support full public access to CI because there was always the risk of vandalisation and/or the lighting of fires. He said that Picnic Point was now designated for a new development. He said the MPC new proposed system was a great improvement on what presently exists.
Ian said he disagreed with George’s comments.
ITEM 5. BRIEF REPORT FROM AGENCIES AND TERMINALS ON KEY ISSUES
Cameron introducedQuentin Cooke who is the West Metropolitan Region EPA representative. He has been with the EPA for 6 months and is playing a key part in the Marstel assessment team.
He said that the EPA are working on the Terminals VECCS Report.
Since 1997 the EPA have been working with Terminals to reduce the amount of benzene emissions. This has been occurring successfully to the point where Terminals have exceeded the regulated level on only one occasion in the past couple of weeks.
Cameron circulated letters of invitation to some CICCC members for the EPA Public Meeting on 19 December 2001 on the Marstel Works Approval application and said that other letters of invitation not circulated tonight would be posted out.
Marstel have indicated that they can provide a separate briefing about the Works Approval to the CICCC if required.
If the Works Approval application is acceptable to the EPA, then on Boxing Day theWorks Approval application will be advertised. The advertisement will be followed by 21 days for public comment with a further extension to the 28 February 2002 if requested and granted by the EPA. The 28 February is the likely date for the 20(B) Conference which is required as part of the Works Approval process.
Carlo said that when Terminals submitted their Works Approval the time period for public comment was left open until the time of the 20(B) Conference without special authority being required.
Peter asked whose idea it was to advertise this on Boxing Day?
Cameron said that notification of late submissions (to Feb 28th) will assist the EPA to organise the 20B Conference. The EPA have to follow the statutory timelines once they receive the document from Marstel.
Peter said that the EPA can accept the WA document when they choose to.
Robin said that it was extraordinary to publicise something of this nature during Xmas holiday ‘down time’. He asked if the Works Approval would be posted on a web site?
Cameron said that over and above the statutory requirement a public meeting will be held next week. The EPA want to see an improvement in environmental and safety standards.
Michael suggested that a second advertisement follow that one placed on Boxing Day.
Cameron said he would take that suggestion to Jim. He said that a summary of the Terminal's WA had been placed on the EPA web site but that changes in web site policy may preclude this from occurring again. He said that he will ensure all CICCC members receive a copy of the document.
John asked that the advertisement on Boxing Day state that there is a 2 month response time (to the 28 Feb 2002) and that it be followed by another advertisement one week after Boxing Day. He also asked that the advertisements state where copies of the Work Approval document might be held for reading by the public.
Peter suggested that one advertisement go in the second week in January rather than on Boxing Day.
Quentin said that Marstel have said they will launch their own web site and post the WA on their web site.
Deborah asked Cameron to request Marstel to send their information to the CICCC as promised, because nothing has been received for 6 weeks.
Peter said he was extremely disappointed that he has only been given one weeks notice of the 19 December public meeting which he will be unable to attend. He asked if an alternative time could be arranged?
Faye said that the CICCC HSE sub committee meeting is scheduled for that time.
Deborah said that the CICCC were promised they would be kept informed. This had not happened in this instance.
Cameron said that comments could be made at the 20(B) Conference. He said that the purpose of the meeting on the 19 December is to present and clarify the WA application document which has been commented on and added to previously.
ACTION. Proposed meeting with Marstel for a briefing 20 December 2001, at 6 pm. Cameron will make a copy of the application available to all CICCC members by 17 December 2001.
MOTION -Peter Brotherton.
That in any future press release the CICCC state its concerns about the intention of the EPA to start a public consultation period on Boxing Day. This timeframe is seen by the CICCC to be extraordinary and fundamentally flawed.
SUPPORTED by all the CICCC except Michael.
Michael said that the City Councils of Maribyrnong and Melbourne are using the same consultant that they commissioned to review the Terminals WA application to report to them about the Marstel WA application. His report will be available in January 2002. Michael reported that Tim Gunning had said that Marstel will finance a meeting and discussion between the Marstel CG and Councils’ consultant. Michael said he thought that other people may also be able to attend that meeting and that it might be worthwhile asking Tim about that.
John said that while the proposal sounds good in principle he has not been advised by Theo of this plan yet, and that the above arrangement would require the approval of both councils before proceeding.
Jarrod said that WorkCover have visited the Terminals site on only two occasions during the last month. There were four Improvement Notices lifted and the cancellation of a prohibition notice.
Marstel P/L were registered as a Major Hazard Facility during November 2001. In response to a question, Jarrod confirmed that the Terminals Pty Ltd Coode Island site was still registered as a Major Hazard Facility.
John said that the Maribyrnong City Council passed a motion on Friday 16 November regarding a proposed meeting with Bronwyn Pike. He said that since then Cr Bill Horrocks and he have met with her and her advisers to bring her up to date on matters concerning Coode Island including the boundary review issues. She will talk with her parliamentary colleagues about the issues discussed including a request for a larger meeting in the New Year which would include the CICCC.
The boundary review matter was also discussed with the Melbourne City Council. The Maribyrnong City Council suggested that its municipality should include Appleton Dock and Coode Island and other docks up to the Docklands development. Both councils will have to agree to any proposed changes if they are to proceed. He said that at this stage there are no indications that Melbourne City Council are totally opposed to the proposal.
George said that the benzene emissions were down again this last month as a result of replacing the carbon in the beds every month.
He tabled the VECCS Upgrade Report for the CICCC to read.
Terminals have secured a long term contract to store acrylate for Orica. They are still seeking to secure further business.
They have also lodged a planning application with Geelong City Council for the construction of a new 1500 cubic metre sphere for the storage of liquid petroleum gas. This material is used to make polypropylene for items like plastic drink bottles. Basell P/L are working on this initiative with Terminals resulting in a doubling of their present capacity for this product. Potentially Terminals will pump it from the storage site to the Basell facility. The contract is worth approximately $90 million to Terminals P/L.
In answer to Faye’s question he said that the nearest sphere to the new sphere is 90 metres and the regulations state that they be at least 20 metres apart. He said the new sphere will be the smallest sphere on the site.
ITEM 6. CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING 8 NOV 2001.
Ian said that his experience chairing last month’s meeting was fascinating and an experience that the other community representatives of the CICCC should have at some point.
The minutes were accepted with the following changes
• pp 1 in the PRESENT listing. That Jarrod be noted as an ex officio committee member.
• Item 4, second paragraph, replace “rational” with “rationale”
• The Action under Item 4 to state “The CICCC will write to Council thanking them for organising this meeting and requesting that they take all necessary steps to invite all members of the CICCC to attend the meeting proposed above.
Under the sub-heading “See the broadsheet e-mailed to committee members 4 November 2001”, delete the following paragraph. Insert in its place the two paragraphs from the top of page 3 (from “John advised that the Community Information …” to “The next meeting of the Steering Group will be in early December.”)
At the bottom of page 4, change the sentence to read “Peter asked about the nature of any process for interaction between the two facilities that may be operated by Terminals and Marstel on Coode Island.”
The text on page 4 relating to coordination component of Safety Cases between facilities was amended to read:
“Guidance provided by MHD has indicated that the coordination component of Safety Case development is anticipated to be of the order of 5%. He said that there are examples of other similar MHF’s required to coordinate (eg the recently determined Caltex major hazard site at Newport co-ordinated with the Shell major hazard facility. This requirement occurred 15 months after Shell’s initial registration.)”
After the heading “See e-mail from Peter Brotherton to the CICCC dated 7 November 2001” insert:
“Peter Brotherton referred to an e-mail he had sent to CICCC members containing the following motion:
"That the Chair write to the City of Maribyrnong seeking clarification as to whether it still endorses the best practice principles under which it originally auspiced the CICCC, including the principle of providing sitting fees to community and environmental group members. If not, could it please clarify those principles that it no longer endorses and the reasons why?" ”
In the following text, after the phrase “…settled in a spirit of reconciliation” add “and Peter requested that the motion be withdrawn.”
Towards the bottom of page 6, there is a sentence as follows “He wanted clarification on the regulations for an unusual non-routine task being carried out at the site..” Replace “He” by “The Terminals Health and Safety representative”.
ITEM 7. ACTION ITEMS FROM THE PREVIOUS MEETING
7.1 Follow up action on the Newsletter (Deborah)
As discussed at the last CICCC meeting, Deb said that she has contacted local schools. Three primary schools are interested for grades 5 & 6 next year. Deb will prepare a suitable presentation of information for the Regional Meeting. She will possibly do the same for secondary schools.
Peter suggested that the educational schools information could also be included on the CICCC web site.
ITEMS 8 - 12 WERE DEFERRED TO THE NEXT MEETING.
ITEM 13. OTHER BUSINESS
13.1
Ian said that last week he met informally with Peter Reddie. Peter asked that his best wishes be passed onto all the CICCC members. Ian said that in the future if Peter were to resided in Melbourne he would to like invite him to be a community representative on the CICCC.
13.2
See attachment 1
Ian tabled the November 2001 Marstel Newsletter.
Robin said that he tried to speak to Tim recently to enquire about why he had not forwarded any information to the CICCC for 6 weeks. There has not been any reply to his message.
13.3
Further advice from John Luppino
John advised that Council is prepared to work with both the CICCC and the MCG to bring the two groups together to enable the Marstel Works Approval application to be scrutinised not only by members of the MCG but also members of the CICCC who have already been through a similar process with Terminals. John said that this also included resolving the issue of sitting fees for committee members. John sought feedback from the Community Reps on whether this was something worth pursuing.
Peter said that it was a logical progression that the two groups be brought together in the longer term. He said he understood John’s proposal to be a short term plan to enable the joint analysis of the Works Approval.
John confirmed the above and said that Jim Clements had also expressed a similar view.
Faye asked if Marstel were requesting this joint discussion.
John said that he has not spoken to Marstel about this proposal yet and that it is a council initiative. He wanted to create an opportunity for the expertise on the CICCC to be utilised with the Marstel WA proposal.
Faye said she would be happy to work on a specific task like the Works Approval. She said it must be seen as completely separate work to that she performs on the CICCC.
George said that the Terminals representative on the CICCC would not be attending any joint meetings with Marstels until Terminals are clearer about their future operations on CI. They would however meet jointly to discuss such matters as an Emergency Plan.
Ted said that he had information he was not very keen to share with Marstel at the moment, but that might change in the future.
John said he will discuss this with Marstel CG and then report back to the CICCC on the matter.
CLOSE.
Time 8.30 pm …followed by Xmas refreshments.
NEXT MEETINGS
Thursday 14 February 2002
Thursday 14 March 2002
CICCC ATTACHMENTS TO DRAFT MINUTES
13 December 2001
Attachment1Marstel Newsletter - November 2001
Items posted to those without e-mail facilities include
9/11/01Email from John Luppino
20/11/01Note from Robin Saunders
6/12/01Letter from CICCC to Cr Bill Horrocks
1