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.

Orica’s Kooragang Island site manager, Sean Winstone, said the company intended to go ahead with the start-up and that its own investigation had found Wednesday’s spill was the result of an isolated computer failure.

The Environmental Defender’s Office, working on behalf of a group called the Stockton Community Action Group, wrote to Ms Parker yesterday urging her to use her special powers to stop the plant from reopening until a parliamentary inquiry into the August 8 leak and a prosecution by the government are complete.

In its letter, the EDO said the residents group wanted the plant closed permanently.

The Herald has learnt the company is being prosecuted for a similar spill, that time of nitric acid, on October 19 last year.

The union representing Orica workers, many of whom live in Stockton and neighbouring suburbs, want the plant to reopen to preserve their livelihoods.

The Australian Workers Union’s John Boyd said employees had been paid during the shutdown but were keen to return to work. ”It would be a great relief for them to get back to normal,” he said.

Orica employs about 170 permanent staff and up to 200 contractors at the plant.

A government prevention notice remains in place for the part of the complex responsible for the August 8 leak of hexavalent chromium, which is the subject of ongoing safety tests.

An EPA spokeswoman said it could require Orica to take further action depending on the result of a mandatory environmental audit ordered after the August leak.

A spokeswoman for Ms Parker said the Start-Up Committee was the appropriate forum to consider restart operations.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/residents-want-orica-plant-shut-for-good-20111208-1oldf.html

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”.

The government said it had a rigorous program of inspections at industrial sites. Most breaches of environmental protection licences – which set permitted pollution levels and require companies to monitor and report on any discharges – resulted in minimal environmental damage.

But the Total Environment Centre found no improvement in areas such as the storage of chlorinated solvents, which have been used in making products as diverse as pesticides, Teflon and electrical insulation, despite many problems being identified in previous audits.

The management of dust from coal mines also led to frequent, sometimes unreported, breaches of environmental licence conditions and showed little improvement between an audit in 2005 and 2010.

”The remedial measures instituted by the department were ineffective,” the director of the Total Environment Centre, Jeff Angel, said.

”It appears that far from protecting the community’s interests, the department and its licences are seen as token pieces of paper, and bad practice often continues unchecked,” Mr Angel said.

“Given the large range of non-compliances that were found in the various reviews and clearly not reported to the department over a number of years – the estimate of incidents of environmental harm that would have occurred and were also not reported must be significant.”

The Office of Environment and Heritage did not comment on its estimate of the proportion of licence breaches that go unreported.

In a statement, the department said it had made 264 inspections in the Hunter region in the last financial year, resulting in 44 penalty notices for licence breaches with total fines of $75,210.

”In addition, 53 pollution reduction programs were placed on companies [which are] designed to improve their environmental performance and 16 penalty notices with fines of $1500 each were issued to local mines and quarries for infringements such as pollution of waters and breaking noise licence conditions.”

A major program to reduce dust and particles from coal mines has begun, with nine mines subject to legally-binding pollution reduction programs and all 68 of the state’s coal mines to be part of the scheme by next April.

”The recent audit program across a number of industries that examined chemical storage and management of chlorinated solvents provided good information which [the office] will use in improving chemical storage practices – such as providing more training and guidance to industry,” it said.

Other environment groups also said the current licensing system was flawed and allowed a culture of routine minor licence breaches that had a cumulative effect.

The state government received a report last week by the former director-general of the NSW Premier’s Department, Brendan O’Reilly, into the handling of the August 8 Orica leak at Kooragang Island.

It will be considered by cabinet today and the findings may be released tomorrow. They are understood to include a recommendation that the state government tighten rules around the reporting of licence breaches.

The report will say that Orica took 16 hours to warn local environment authorities about the potentially toxic plume of hexavalent chromium that reached the suburb of Stockton and more than 42 hours to advise NSW Health of the risks.

Prompted by the Orica chemcial leak, the government will today launch the biggest environmental audit in NSW history, targeting more than 40 potentially toxic industrial sites in Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.

The Environment Minister, Robyn Parker, said the audit was the first stage in a process likely to lead to tougher controls, including more monitoring and bigger fines.

Among the sites in Sydney to face immediate audits and spot checks are the Orica plant at Matraville, which is leaking mercury to Botany Bay, the Shell and Caltex refineries at Rose Hill and Kurnell, the ELGAS and Origin bulk shipping storage areas at Port Botany and the Toll North waste storage facility at Arndell Park.

The BlueScope Steel coke plant at Port Kembla and the Incitec Pivot chemical production plant on Kooragang Island at Newcastle also face audits.

Ms Parker said the audits would focus on the management of risks and the adequacy of emergency response procedures. “The [Environment Office] will not hesitate to issue penalty notices and fines during inspections. Pollution reduction programs, clean-up notices and stopwork orders may also be issued and in cases where serious breaches of the legislation are identified, the [office] will consider use of all its regulatory tools, including prosecution action and licence suspensions.”

Several of the sites have repeatedly breached their environmental protection licences during the past five years.

The government said it could lead to changes in the system of environmental protection licences, which has been criticised for not making businesses reduce toxic emissions as long as they report non-compliance incidents. The opposition said it would support legislative changes to tighten the licences.

More compliance staff have been appointed at the agency and the first audits will be completed by mid-December. A final report on the biggest risks will be given to the government in February.

Ms Parker said the move had been sparked by the Orica chemical leak of August 8, when a carcinogenic cloud of hexavalent chromium released from a Kooragang Island plant drifted across the Newcastle suburb of Stockton.

Although later tests showed the risk to human health was very low, it took three days to notify the public of the incident. Orica and the government have faced questions about the adequacy of their emergency plans.

The hexavalent chromium was also removed and stored in an open-air tank at Homebush for six days after the leak.

Two inquiries, one by the former senior public servant Brendan O’Reilly and one initiated by the upper house, have since been launched.

The opposition spokesman on the environment, Luke Foley, said the government had been playing ”catch-up” but the audit was a step forward.

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.

Neither party would comment on the sensitive issue of whether compensation would have to be paid from public funds to secure the pristine wilderness. But funding was set aside for the establishment of Dharawal National Park in the state budget, effectively locking out mining, which is banned in almost all of the state’s national parks. An allocation of less than $1 million will be used for building of walking tracks and putting up signs.

The government confirmed yesterday it planned to gazette the park to ”the centre of the earth”, which would kill Illawarra Coal’s proposal to extract up to $40 billion worth of coal from the Bulli seam.

”While negotiations are continuing, it is the government’s intention that Dharawal National Park will not be reserved with a depth restriction,” said a spokeswoman for the Environment Minister, Robyn Parker. ”In this way, this special area will be protected to the ‘centre of the earth’ in perpetuity.”

BHP Billiton said its proposal for mining beneath Dharawal was still being considered by the state government, despite the national park pledge.

”Illawarra Coal continues to focus on the resolution of our Bulli Seam Operations Project application currently before government,” a BHP Billiton spokeswoman said. ”It has involved an extensive process and, if approved, will provide security for all who work at our Appin and West Cliff operations.”

Confidential advice from the previous state environment department, obtained by the Herald earlier this year, show active mining leases overlapping the proposed park zone. It said special legislation might be required to extinguish existing mining leases, and added: ”Compensation issues between government and industry would need to be resolved.”

The Dharawal conservation area, covering about 6200 hectares of bushland, is considered particularly vulnerable to mining because it contains hundreds of upland swamps that filter clean water down into the Sydney drinking water catchment.

Mining in nearby areas has led to subsidence and surface cracking, including causing a river to run dry after the bedrock beneath it split.

THE company responsible for the Newcastle chemical leak has admitted that an attempt to clean up toxic mercury from a site near Botany Bay, in Sydney, is not working.

Orica has suspended mercury remediation works at an industrial site at Matraville after the technology it was using was too slow in removing the substance from the soil.

The chief executive, Graeme Liebelt, yesterday apologised for an incident in the Hunter on August 8 in which low levels of hexavalent chromium were sprayed but did not concede that the 16 hours it took to report the incident to the government was too long.

The Premier, Barry O’Farrell, has ordered an environmental audit of the Kooragang Island plant after the August 8 leak and an arsenic leak into the Hunter River on August 19, and an inquiry by the former director-general of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Brendan O’Reilly. The upper house has called for a parliamentary inquiry with public hearings.

The company discovered mercury several years ago in the soil and groundwater beneath the former chloralkali plant at Botany industrial park in Sydney, which operated between 1945 and 2002. Mercury entered the soil via leaking pipes.

Orica agreed to remediate the mercury using soil-washing technology, which began in May and was due to be finished on September 30.

A spokeswoman said the technology had not been reliable and Orica had suspended the work.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Environment and Heritage said it had been in discussions with the company and would negotiate an extension to the deadline.

”We’re hoping they’ll come back to us with a better option as quickly as they can to get this operation back on track,” she said.

Jeff Angel of the Total Environment Centre said the remediation was essential because mercury was a serious toxin.

”Clearly they’ve been unable to get on top of it,” he said, ”but it’s essential they do because groundwater travels.”

In 2008 Orica admitted that the clean-up of a plume of various highly toxic chemicals at Port Botany would take more than a century to complete.

The Orica spokeswoman said the company remained committed to the remediation agreed with the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

Mr Liebelt said that although non-compliance was unacceptable, his company was a good corporate citizen.

”Orica is a very responsible company. We have very robust systems in place for dealing with our safety, health and environmental performance,” he said.

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.

Workcover NSW is investigating the incident and the part of the Orica plant involved in the chromium release has been shut by state government environmental inspectors.

The company did not inform the Office of Environment and Heritage until 16 hours later, on Tuesday morning.

The NSW Environment Minister, Robyn Parker, has since announced a ”full and independent” review into the incident that affected 70 homes and closed a childcare centre.

An environmental claims lawyer, Rebecca Jancauskas of Shine Lawyers, confirmed yesterday the firm was speaking to three affected families in relation to the potential class action.

In addition to compensation for the health impacts of exposure to the chemical, the action could also seek damages for ”stigma and blight” and a potential drop in property values as a result.

Ms Brockovich, who campaigned about the dangers of hexavalent chromium in the US, was informed about the Stockton incident on the weekend. The NSW Department of Health said that tests have found that ”very low” levels of cancerous chemicals leaked from the plant and that there is no health risk to the residents.

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.

The hearing was told that many farmers in northern and western NSW were angry about proposals to extract coal seam gas from their land, and some planned to join a mass campaign to lock their gates in the face of resources companies.

The NSW Farmers Association said a ”gas rush” had been driven across NSW in the past two years because the state government had allowed a five-year exemption on paying royalties on coal seam gas extraction, to facilitate the growth of the industry.

Mr Dunn addressed a meeting – organised by the NSW Greens – in Leichhardt on Monday night. It discussed the planned drilling of an exploratory well in St Peters by a coal seam gas company, Dart Energy. He later said he stood by his comments, and that they applied to the industry in general.

”The intent of saying that is to make it clear that we have never shied away from the fact that there will be impacts on aquifers,” Mr Dunn said.

”I’m wanting to ensure that we are not seen as saying there won’t be any impacts during the process. It is a matter of monitoring and managing those impacts.”

The contamination of underground water supplies by coal seam gas mining, and particularly the controversial fracking process which injects a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into rock strata at high pressure, has been among the chief concerns of people opposed to gas extraction.

Mr Dunn said the geology of different gas extraction sites varied and, in many cases, the aquifers affected would be too deep for rural land use, so agriculture would not be influenced.

The government has imposed a moratorium on fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, until the end of the year.

Opponents want all coal seam gas mining banned and a long-term study carried out into the health and environmental effects.

The president of the Farmers Association, Fiona Simson, told the Herald she was yet to meet a rural land-holder who approved of the way the coal seam gas industry was doing business.

”We have land-holders across NSW who are already being impacted by coal seam gas companies seeking to demand access to their land,” Ms Simson said.

One submission to the Senate inquiry, from the medical group Doctors for the Environment, outlined some of the potential health risks posed by coal seam gas mining.

It said some of the compounds used during drilling, or released from underground by drilling, could ”produce short-term health effects and some may contribute to systemic illness and/or cancer many years later”.

”The public health consideration of these matters has been inadequate, leaving the population exposed to potential health hazards,” the submission said.

The industry in Australia has consistently said there are no known health risks associated with the practice in Australia or overseas.

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.

Walker Corporation, which has more than $4 billion of developments under way across Australia, was given a record fine for a company under the Native Vegetation Act for clearing the land at a property near Wilton, south-west of Sydney, in 2006 and 2007.

The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) brought the case against Walker Corporation and persuaded the court the company cleared seven native species including black she-oak and narrow-leaved ironbark.

These species had provided homes to two endangered ecological communities and habitat for threatened species including the koala, powerful owl, spotted-tailed quoll and eastern bent-wing bat.

Walker Corporation pleaded not guilty to the charges and told the court it had employed a contractor, Environmental Land Clearing, to clean up the property, which had weeds growing on it and had been used as a site to dump cars. Its spokesman said the company would appeal the judgment.

The court heard the contractor used a machine called a ”mega mulcher” to clear vegetation on the site which degraded the habitat for a range of native fauna.

Mr Kenneth Turner, a terrestrial ecologist employed by OEH, said the clearing would lead to the direct or indirect deaths from starvation and other means of individual reptiles, amphibians, birds, bats and ground and arboreal mammals, during and after clearing.

Walker Corporation, which had never been convicted of an environmental offence, argued it was not liable because the contractor had held itself out to be an expert company and cleared the land without it authorising, supervising or exerting control over the clearing, an argument Justice Rachel Pepper rejected.

”The fact remains that the clearing that it did carry out was undertaken in accordance with and directly as a result of Walker’s instructions,” she said.

The Queensland government has ordered Cougar Energy to shut down its trial UCG plant near Kingaroy in southern Queensland.

The decision was made after the company was found to have contaminated groundwater at the site with cancer-causing chemicals including benzene.

It took two months to notify government authorities of the incident, in breach of strict environmental rules.

The Department of Environment and Resource Management today downplayed the risk for nearby landholders, saying the contamination was confined to the site.

Acting director general Terry Wall said the company would be forced to rehabilitate it, including decontaminating aquifers, and was facing court action over its activities.

Asked if authorities would ever again contemplate allowing Cougar to operate in Queensland, Mr Wall told the ABC: “Certainly not in respect of underground coal gasification.”

Mr Wall said the department had formed a view that Cougar’s risk management processes were lacking and it could not be trusted to continue operations.

He said there were no drinking water aquifers on the site, so that was not a risk, but the contamination had spread to an aquifer above the site’s coal seam.

“There are a number of monitoring bores around the site and none of those indicate any movement of contamination beyond the site,” Mr Wall said.

He defended the system the government uses to keep tabs on such projects but admitted that, alongside spot checks by more than 150 officers, it was up to companies to own up to any breaches.

The department has issued Cougar Energy with a summons accusing it of breaching operating permits by contaminating the site, and failing to promptly notify authorities.

He said it was up to individual landholders to decide if they would pursue compensation for any perceived negative effect on their properties.

In a statement to the stock exchange today, Cougar Energy said it had not received a formal, amended environmental authority outlining the decision to shut down the Kingaroy site.

“Therefore the company is presently not in a position to assess the extent of the amendments or their implications,” it said.

It said the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) had made a decision on “flawed conclusions”.

“Cougar Energy maintains that the Kingaroy project has not caused any environmental harm to the operating site, surrounding landowner properties nor the Kingaroy township,” it said.

“This is supported by DERM acknowledgement that contaminants have not been detected outside the Cougar Energy site.

“Cougar Energy is receiving legal advice in relation to the recent actions of DERM and the shutdown of the Kingaroy project in July 2010.”

The Kingaroy trial was suspended in July last year, ahead of the decision on Thursday to permanently shut it down.

Independent MP Dorothy Pratt, who represents the south Burnett region where the Kingaroy trial operated, said the case should serve as a warning to other communities near UCG trial sites.

Two others are being operated in Queensland, using new technology to convert coal to gas using heat and chemicals.

Ms Pratt said new mining technologies should not be allowed in prime agricultural areas like the one at Kingaroy because the risks were simply too high.

“I don’t believe, as yet, the technology is fool proof,” she told the ABC.

“There’s never any guarantee. You can’t give a 100 per cent guarantee that no contamination will occur and everything can be put back in place.

“Where there’s good agricultural land these sorts of practices should never be undertaken.”

She attacked the government’s reliance on an honesty policy requiring companies to admit their own breaches.

“The government relies very heavily on the companies to report immediately when things go wrong and if they don’t then the disaster that may occur could be catastrophic for people who live in that environment,” she said.

“It’s up to the people to be vigilant.”

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/coal-gas-company-banned-in-queensland-for-contaminating-groundwater/story-e6frg9df-1226090511694