Tonight the air is fairly thick on this side of Kwinana, the wind has been blowing the pollution from Kwinana Industry into residential areas. The best of the worst are: Verve has had a great plume of grey Particulates pouring from its power station stacks, the CSBP Ammonium Nitrate plume continues unabated, Tiwest's plumes from its 2 stacks are as as bad as ever and BP has a visible plume of Particulates from it cat cracker stack.
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If you listen to the Local and State Government there are measures in place to protect local communities from industrial pollution. The measures usually referred to are DEC licences and the Kwinana Environmental Protection Policy (EPP).
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The Kwinana EPP was introduced and became law in 1992 and to my understanding it was made a legal requirement to review the EPP every 7 years. The EPA claims “The Kwinana EPP was formally reviewed in 1999 and re-issued unchanged. The 1992 Regulations remain in force, and were amended in 1999 to reflect the policy title change” .
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However the policy was not truly reviewed, because the EPA did not consider the latest mounting evidence of medical and air quality research from around the world (it's now 2008 so what happened to the 2006 review?).
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The Kwinana EPP considers only Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) and Total Suspended Particulates – There is clear evidence that there has not been an ongoing SO2 problem in Kwinana since the early - mid 1990’s and having limits on Total Suspended Particulates does nothing to protect the community against the biggest threat of fine particulate pollution. Many other chemicals/compounds have been ignored for example Ammonia (NH3), Dioxins, Heavy Metals (eg Nickel Ni), Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds etc that are proven to cause serious health problems.
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After well over 10 years of dealing with the EPA and the Environmental Protection system of this state, it is clear to me that these systems are much more capable of protecting polluting industry and the economy than they are at protecting the environment and more importantly protecting people from Environmental Harm.
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The Kwinana EPP considers only Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) and Total Suspended Particulates – There is clear evidence that there has not been an ongoing SO2 problem in Kwinana since the early - mid 1990’s and having limits on Total Suspended Particulates does nothing to protect the community against the biggest threat of fine particulate pollution. Many other chemicals/compounds have been ignored for example Ammonia (NH3), Dioxins, Heavy Metals (eg Nickel Ni), Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) and Volatile Organic Compounds etc that are proven to cause serious health problems.
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After well over 10 years of dealing with the EPA and the Environmental Protection system of this state, it is clear to me that these systems are much more capable of protecting polluting industry and the economy than they are at protecting the environment and more importantly protecting people from Environmental Harm.
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So don’t be fooled just because the word ‘protect’ appears on the title does not mean that it is capable of protecting this community from industrial pollution – far from it.
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Update: This is from the EPA;
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Update: This is from the EPA;
"In accordance with s36(b) of the Environmental Protection Act 1986, the Environmental Protection Authority has deferred the commencement of the review of the Environmental Protection (Kwinana) (Atmospheric Wastes) Policy 1999 as directed by the Minister for the Environment. This direction is in effect until 31 December 2009"
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Too hard basket or another case of protect industry at any cost?
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