A STOCKTON residents group has called on the Environment Minister, Robyn Parker, to use her special powers to close the Orica plant near their homes indefinitely following the company’s latest chemical spill.

The Environmental Protection Authority is investigating a spill of 20,000 litres of a weak ammonium nitrate solution, which overflowed from a storage tank on Wednesday afternoon. The company blamed the leak on a computer that failed to shut down the plant.

One day earlier, the EPA allowed the company to reopen part of the plant responsible for an ammonia chemical leak last month, but that start-up has been delayed after the latest incident. (Read on …)

THE recent chemical leaks from Orica factories are not isolated events but fit a wider pattern of continuing pollution at hundreds of sites, an analysis of the state’s environmental protection licences shows.

With the NSW government set to release its report this week into the hexavalent chromium leak near Stockton in Newcastle, a study by the Total Environment Centre has found dozens more breaches, including many that had gone unreported by companies until they were picked up by government audits.

It says the system of monitoring is ”dysfunctional”. (Read on …)

The NSW government insists mining will be banned beneath a new 6000-hectare national park on the fringe of south-western Sydney, putting it on a collision course with BHP Billiton, which said it still plans to extract billions of dollars worth of black coal from the area.

Negotiations are continuing between the government and BHP Billiton subsidiary Illawarra Coal, which holds one of several mining leases that cover the area to become Dharawal National Park, near Campbelltown. (Read on …)

LAWYERS working with the environmental activist Erin Brockovich are considering class action over a toxic leak from the Orica plant on Kooragang Island, north of Newcastle.

Clean-up crews and trucks from Hunter’s Mainstream Industries were out in force yesterday as residents remained concerned about the potential health impacts of the chromium cloud that was blown over Stockton last Monday.

The Herald was told by health officials yesterday that as much as 10 kilograms of the potentially carcinogenic hexavalent chromium – chromium six – material was accidentally released into the atmosphere in the half-hour or so before the problem was noticed. (Read on …)

THE coal seam gas industry has conceded that extraction will inevitably contaminate aquifers.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association told a fiery public meeting in Sydney that good management could minimise the risks of water contamination, but never eliminate them.

”Drilling will, to varying degrees, impact on adjoining aquifers,” said the spokesman, Ross Dunn. ”The extent of impact and whether the impact can be managed is the question.”

The admissions came before the start of the first public hearing in NSW, held in Narrabri, of a Senate inquiry into the effects of coal seam gas mining. (Read on …)

Cougar Energy will fight a government order that it cease a controversial underground coal gasification project in southeast Queensland.

The Department of Environment and Resource Management announced on July 7 that no further coal gasification would be permitted at the project, near Kingaroy.

It made final a decision to suspend the trial in July last year, when traces of the cancer-causing chemical benzene was found in groundwater monitoring bores on the site.

The find angered locals, who have waged a campaign against the plant.

The department has asked Cougar to remove all infrastructure from the site, unless the landowner agrees to keep it.

It also ordered the company to treat and dispose of any contaminated water in surface storages and clean up groundwater.

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange today, Cougar Energy said it had received formal notice of DERM’s decision on July 19.

“Cougar Energy Limited (ASX: CXY) advises that it will seek a review of the Queensland government’s decision to restrict the company’s activities at the Kingaroy underground coal gasification trial site,” it said.

The company said it had until August 2 to seek the internal review by DERM.

The department has also charged Cougar Energy with breaking the conditions of its environmental approval.

It’s accused of breaching operating permits by contaminating the site and failing to promptly notify authorities.