ITEM 1. WELCOME BY THE CHAIR & APOLOGIES

Ian Thomas the acting chairperson for tonight welcomed the committee members and others attending this CICCC meeting.

ITEM 2. APOLOGIES

Apologies were received from Michael Ragen and Robin Saunders.

ITEM 3. CONFIRMATION OF THE DRAFT AGENDA

The draft agenda was adopted with the inclusion of an additional item for discussion regarding the new incoming e-mailed correspondence.

Faye will give the HSE sub-committee report.

Item 5 was removed from the agenda because Allen said this item had no immediate impact on Terminals who are progressing with the running of their business as required.

ITEM 4. BRIEF REPORT FROM AGENCIES AND TERMINALS ON KEY ISSUES

Bill said that the Maribyrnong City Council at its last meeting decided to write to Bronwyn Pike (state member for Melbourne, cabinet member and Minister for Housing and Aged Care). They have invite her to convene a meeting to clarify and allow for full information sharing about issues, facts and roles concerning all activities on Coode Island. All stakeholders will be invited. She has accepted this invitation but dates have not been finalised.

Peter asked why the minister responsible for Coode Island activities was not asked to convene the meeting? What was the rationale behind inviting Bronwyn Pike?

Bill said he had originally moved the motion for Council to consider. He said it is of interest to Bronwyn because she is the member for Melbourne and that Coode Island is in her electorate. He said she should have all the information from all the stakeholders. He said it is the aim of the Maribyrnong City Council to have only one community based committee monitoring activities on Coode Island. Bronwyn Pike’s Electoral Officers will decide on the list of stakeholders to be invited to the meeting. The CICCC will be invited to contribute.

Ian said he felt offended because the CICCC had not been approached by the Maribyrnong City Council to request that they make this approach to Bronwyn Pike. He said it must be unusual for council to work with two committees from Coode Island.

Peter said that the issue of one committee for all Coode Island major hazard storage businesses had been discussed in a previous report made some years earlier.

ACTION. 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 attend the meeting proposed above.

See the broadsheet e-mailed to committee members 4 November 2001

John advised that the Community Information/Alert Project Steering Group, a

joint initiate between the Office of Emergency Management Commissioner and

the City of Maribyrnong met for the first time in mid October and the Group

was chaired by Cr Horrocks. John understood that a copy of the minutes in

the form of a broad sheet had been electronically circulated to the CICCC.

Theo Pykoulas, Council's MERO has been seconded to work on this project and

Council has back filled his role as an Environmental Health Officer for the

next 6 months so that he can concentrate his efforts on this project and the Marstel Working Group. This cost is being borne entirely by the City of Maribyrnong.

The City of Maribyrnong is providing other 'in kind' resources and assistance to the project across the whole organisation and has the full support of Management. The next meeting of the Steering Group will be in early December.

ACTION. Ian will e-mail a copy of the broadsheet to all CICCC members.

ACTION. Further discussion about matters arising from the content of the broadsheet will be deferred to the next meeting.

Maribyrnong is perceived as the municipality most closely linked with Coode Island, even if it is currently in the City of Melbourne. Most relevant strategic planning relates to Maribyrnong. Furthermore, Maribyrnong receives most of the negative impacts of the continued operation of Coode Island, but receives no benefits.

Last week the Mayor and Chief Executive Officer met with the Mayor, Chief

Executive Officers and Advisors from the City of Melbourne over boundary issues. The City of Maribyrnong put an argument to the City of Melbourne that Coode Island should be hand back to the City of Maribyrnong, so that the rates collected can be used to deal with the negative impacts from chemical storage facilities on the Island.

John said that the success of and boundary reform was dependant on agreement between the two municipalities before an approach is made to the Minister for Local Government.

In answer to Ian’s question Bill said he had not attended the meeting himself and so could not comment on the full content of the discussion. He did not know if the CICCC had been discussed or not.

Theo Pykoulas is Council's representative on the Marstel Consultative Group. It is Council's objective through its participation on the Consultative Group to ensure that Marstel develop a world recognised chemical storage facility that will meet the highest standard of safety and environmental performance.

Council has negotiated with the City of Melbourne to joint fund an independent review of the Marstel Works Approval application to ensure it achieves the above objective. This is similar to the approach Council took with the Terminals Works Approval Application last year.

The consultants will be asked to compare the Marstel Works Approval with

that of Terminals, and advise Council if the 'bench mark' safety and environmental standards set by the Terminals Works Approval application have been met, exceeded or compromised.

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?

Cameron said that the EPA would have to look at the possible cumulative effects of the operations of the two facilities as they arise.

Jarrod said that Marstel have not been registered as a Major Hazard Site yet but that WorkCover can require that they co-ordinate their processes if necessary.

George said that nothing had been co-ordinated yet because of the different time frames for both facilities.

Jarrod said that no time extensions would be granted to Terminals but that the aspect of practicality will be considered when the application is assessed. If new hazards appear as a result of new information from Marstel, then Terminals may be asked to alter some aspects of their Safety Case.

Peter asked if this could pose a significant resourcing concern for Terminals in the future?

George said that Terminals have to assume that the new Marstel facility will be of no possible safety threat to Terminals.

Carlo said that a new terminal could not be built if it were to increase the risk of an already existing site.

Jarrod said that WorkCover would assess any possible implications in line with considerations for ‘practicability’. He said that in future something like possible land use changes could change things even for a new facility. 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.)

Deborah said that ABC Radio’s Background Briefing program had recently covered the new major hazard legislation.

Peter said the second of two programs in the series would be held in December. He is interviewed in the second program.

ACTION. Deborah will get a transcript of the programs for tabling at the next meeting.

See e-mail from Peter Brotherton to the CICCC dated 7 November 2001

Peter Brotherton referred to an email 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?"

John said he was disappointed that tonight was the first time he has seen the above e-mail and the proposed motion. He said he was offended and disappointed that it had not been sent to him prior to tonight’s meeting.

Peter said that he had e-mailed it to his CICCC list and apologised if that list was incomplete.

Ian said that John and Bill were probably now feeling like he had felt when he first found out about the meeting arrangements made with Bronwyn Pike without the knowledge and inclusion of the CICCC.

Peter said that as a CICCC community representative he found it necessary to play ‘hard ball’ sometimes.

John said he had not been trying to play ‘hard ball’ and that he had never agreed to a policy of no sitting fees for committee members as a was alleged.

Following further discussions John and Peter decided that their differences were better understood and the matter would be settled in a spirit of reconciliation, and Peter requested that the motion be withdrawn.

Deborah said that it was Gordon Harrison who had told her that he had persuaded others around to his view that sitting fees should not be paid. He said it was not needed or ideal. She said she explained to him the practical difficulties experienced for some people when fees were not made available. This was one of the reasons that some CICCC members had made a decision to not become Marstel consultative committee members. Deborah says it is significant that the City of Melbourne does not attend the CICCC meetings and yet they collect all the rates from the facilities on Coode Island.

Michael said that no fees were being paid to the Marstel committee members because it gave the impression of less bias on a committee. Marstel took this position after consulting with the committee members themselves about this matter. He said they are an active committee who ask hard questions but there are no members with technical expertise on that committee.

Ian said Tim Gunning from Marstel had made it very clear to him early on that they were not planning to pay sitting fees to committee members.

Bill said that at the first meeting chaired by him Tim had made the comment that they would not be paying fees to sitting members.

Faye asked the agencies to comment on their feelings about sitting on such a committee as set up by Marstel?

John said both committees meet in the same building and it was council’s wish to have only one committee. The next Marstel meeting will be held at P&O Ports.

Deborah said she was not keen to spend time attending Marstel committee meetings because she sees their committee as lacking in suitable representation and/or credibility.

Jim said that Peter Reddie had said it was not practical for 2 companies to work together as one committee because of commercial concerns. He said that Marstel have gone through the same process as Terminals did. He suggested that the time to amalgamate them might be after the Marstel Works Approval is completed.

Peter said that while Marstel and Terminals were in particularly vigorous competition in the pre-approval stage, a single Committee incorporating the operators needs was not possible. He believed most people accepted the desirability of a single Committee over the longer term.

Allen said that tonight’s discussion included new information for Terminals and that he will make comments about tonight’s discussion at the next meeting.

Faye said that as a community representative she has concerns about government agencies endorsing committees that lack credibility. She said that in contrast Terminals had gone to great lengths to ensure credibility. She said that an additional combined committee would not be ideal.

Deborah said she had heard that Jim had advocated for a ‘new broom approach’ to forming the Marstel committee. She asked if a ‘tame committee’ might give the EPA less trouble?

Jim said he was open to debate in relation to this matter.

Jarrod said that WorkCover was keen to see that the Marstel project was a safe operation and to ensure it communicated information to the community. The credibility of the committee members was not of as much concern as the other 2 points.

Faye said that if agencies are seeking opinions of committees then wouldn’t they require opinions of credible committee members who would be asking hard questions and promoting discussion about sometimes difficult and technical issues.

Michael asked if she was suggesting this was not happening on the Marstel committee?

Trevor said this matter had been discussed at the last four CICCC meetings. He said that Ian’s wife was on the Marstel committee and she has a professional background. They did ask about a broad range of matters and they did ask hard questions. He said he attends the Marstel meetings and sees them to be in the same position as the CICCC committee was about 6 months ago.

Faye asked again if the credibility of the Marstel committee was relevant to his agencies?

Trevor asked why he should answer that question.

Deborah said it was very relevant that Gordon held this committee in low esteem especially as he was the Melbourne City Council represented the on the CICCC. She said that as a resident living in the area she is concerned that she can not find out information she would like to know about the Marstel proposal.

Trevor said that the MF&ESB have been meeting with PACIA and others on the Office of the Emergency Services Commission project which Robyn Betts has been co-ordinating. They have given advice regarding the VECCS at Terminals.

Carlo said it has taken a long time to finalise this initiative.

George said that a larger tank would be replacing two smaller tanks and that the contents would no longer need be transferred via mobile tanks as had previously occurred.

Trevor said that Marstel have contacted their department a number of times and they will be meeting with them next week to discuss the design and layout of the site.

Ian said Robin Saunders has spoken to Tim Gunning and Tim has agreed to make available to the CICCC all the documentation generated by the Marstel Community Consultative meetings. Ian tabled these.

Bill asked if P&O Ports had ever been a member of the CICCC.

Peter said they had been invited to be more involved in the CICCC meetings and that they had always come when they were invited which was on 2 or 3 occasions.

Ian said that on those occasions they addressed the CICCC very well.

Jarrod said WorkCover are continuing to work with Robyn Betts.

They visited the Terminals site four times in October. Two visits were previously planned, one was a follow-up inspection and the other was to have discussions as requested with the Terminal’s health and safety representative. The Terminals Health and Safety representative wanted clarification on the regulations for an unusual non-routine task being carried out at the site. A risk assessment task is not usually covered in the manual.

The Field Division are preparing for the ongoing 6 monthly audit of the Terminals site as required under the Dangerous Goods and Health and Safety regulations.

Faye asked if there had been any further attention given to safety since the September 11 incident in the USA.

Jarrod said it was discussed at a more senior level but not in his section.

Trevor said that the MF&ESB had handled a lot of anthrax false alarms. He said that chemical agents could be attractive to terrorists. The government and emergency services need to look at tightening up the security of dangerous goods. It has been suggested that a national focus is needed. There has been nothing directly conveyed to him regarding the Terminals site.

Cameron said it had been a quiet month for the EPA. They have met with Terminals to discuss the new VECCS plan which will be submitted to the EPA by the 19 November. Input about this will be sought from the CICCC at the next meeting.

They are waiting for the right conditions to commence monitoring from the sites discussed at the last meeting.

George said Terminals have been working on the new VECCS which is to be a combustion system in line with the approved EPA works Approval.

They have been negotiating new lease arrangements with the Melbourne Ports for the redevelopment of the site.

The monitoring of benzene using a Gas Chromatograph Photo Ionisation Detector (GCPID) show levels (short time thus far) show it has been controllable to below 51 GPM with very minor accedence’s. Currently we are using a hired unit but a new unit is about to be delivered that will be permanently installed and will be able to switch carbon beds and sound alarms which the current unit cannot do. He said this system can detect acrylates but not at levels low enough for licence compliance or odour control.

Carlo said its lowest detection level is 1pp which is not low enough for this highly odours material. It can be smelt at much lower levels than 1pp.

George said that the carbon beds are now replaced monthly. The cleaning of tank 101 is almost complete and they are presently doing the mandatory 10-year tests on tank 370. They had good results from the WorkCover 2-day quality audit.

Ian thanked everyone for their reports.

ITEM 5. (Removed from the agenda)

ITEM 6. CONFIRMATION OF THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

The minutes were accepted with the following changes

pp3 ITEM 4. The first line should read -

‘Jarrod said that WorkCover was still oversighting the Terminals …..’

ITEM 7. ACTION ITEMS FROM THE PREVIOUS MEETING

7.1 Follow up action on the Newsletter (Deborah)

Deborah said that she has not actioned this item and asked if it should be a project that Marstel and Terminals committees do jointly?

Ian tabled the Marstel draft newsletter.

Deborah said there would be a lot of duplication if Terminals produced the same sort of newsletter.

Other suggestions made by the CICCC included

• use the CICCC web site for the newsletter

• lots of people in Footscray don’t own computers

• computers are available to everyone in libraries and kids have access to them in schools

• publicise our web site more in the community

• the CICCC web address is always included in the press release published in the local papers

• do an A4 double sided flier/newsletter for locals to read

• contact primary schools and suggest they do a school project using the CICCC web site for information.

• The Terminals web site also has a lot of useful information and it could be good PR for Terminals to tell schools about this web site too.

ACTION. Deborah and George will write a letter to all the local primary schools in the area and tell them about the CICCC web site.

7.2 Possible public forum

Deferred to next meeting

7.3 Review of sitting fees

Deferred to next meeting

ITEM 8.

CORRESPONDENCE OUT

See e-mail 30 October 2001

• Letter of appreciation to Matthew Wylie.

Robin has made contact with Matthew and has his contact details for those who require them.

ITEM 9.

CORRESPONDENCE IN

See e-mail 4 November 2001

• Reply from Marstel on Worst Case Scenario

See e-mail 4 November 2001

• Marstel media release

See Attachment 2

• Notes from Robin Saunders

See e-mail 4 November 2001

• OESC Broadsheet (Robyn Betts)

Deborah said that the issues the OESC committee deal with are of concern to the community. She said that the CICCC have already discussed this material at length. The CICCC were expecting to be invited to the meeting.

Ted pointed out that in her written presentation at the last meeting Robyn Betts had listed the CICCC as a stakeholder.

George pointed out that the OESC committee may get wider involvement in this plan which might be the impedes needed to action some of the issues previously discussed by the CICCC.

ACTION. Further discuss the above matter at the next CICCC meeting.

See CICCC library

• Copy of notes tabled at the last Marstel CCC meeting.

These were received with thanks from the CICCC members but there was concern expressed about the number of pages to be read and how this might be achieved so optimum use of the information would be achieved.

ITEM 10. MONTHLY REPORT FROM TERMINALS.

See Attachment 3.1 and 3.2

Carlo tabled the reports for September 2001 and October 2001.

Trucking movements were less but shipping was busy.

Benzene movements stopped for about one month only.

Trucks with bottom loading, multiload compartment capacity pose a potential safety risk for vapours to contaminate other compartments when the stationary brakes are operated.

ITEM 11. MONTHLY REPORT FROM HS&E SUB-COMMITTEE (FAYE)

See Attachment 1.

Faye gave the report as tabled.

George said that in 1999 an enterprise bargaining agreement saw the Terminals staff made redundant and then they were re-employed as contactors. So all the contracted staff have been employed on the site for a long time. There is only one staff member working as a casual employee.

Faye said they have two quotes to consider for the Worse Case Scenario contract.

Ted said that tools used by riggers namely ‘fids’ and ‘podgers’ were discussed.

ITEM 12. AGENDA FOR THE NEXT MEETING 13 DECEMBER 2001

See all the above ACTION ITEMS.

CLOSE.

Time 10.40 pm

NEXT MEETINGS

Thursday 13 December 2001

Thursday 14 February 2002

CICCC ATTACHMENTS TO DRAFT MINUTES

8 November 2001

Attachment 1 HS&E sub committee minutes for meeting 5 September 2001

Attachment 2 Robin Saunders Report to the CICCC meeting.

Attachment 3.1 Terminals Monthly Operation Report, September 2001

3.2 Terminals Monthly Operation Report, October 2001

Items posted to those without e-mail facilities include

1. E-mails 10/10/01 • Letter to Matthew Wylie

2. E-mails 4/11/01 • Broadsheet from Community Alert & Information System Project

• Marstel media release

• Copy of letter from Marstel 24/9/01

3. E-mails 7/11/01 • From Peter Brotherton re Maribyrnong City council and best practise community monitoring and consultative system.

4. E-mails 8/11/01 • From Peter Brotherton re public forum on the 14/11/01