Tiwest under fire

This weeks Kwinana Courier ran two reports on the Tiwest problems.

Firstly a worker describes what it is like to be gassed with Chlorine:

The Western Construction sub-contractor, who did not want to be named, said he and another colleague were working in area 300 at the site several weeks ago when the alarm sounded for a leak of dangerous
chlorine gas.
The rigger and a colleague ran from the area they were working
in after the alarm sounded, but were directed the wrong way and ran into the chlorine gas plume.
“It was like someone had kicked me in the guts. I was vomiting and coughing.”
He said he suffered nausea, headaches, chest tightness and blisters to the back of his throat and had not yet been given a full clearance by his doctor.
“We were running the way the Tiwest worker told us to go and we ended up running into the plume. We were just in fresh air then all of a sudden I could taste it then smell it.”
The rigger, who has worked in the construction industry for about seven years, said he did not feel safe working at the Tiwest site.

Secondly our MLA Roger Cook gets involved:

Kwinana MLA Roger Cook said he had spoken with community members and unions concerned about the problems at Tiwest, which he said had been reported for several months.

“This has been going on for some time; are they dealing with unstructured technology or are they just incompetent?” he said.

“The community is starting to lose patience in regards to Tiwest.”Mr Cook said he welcomed the WorkSafe investigation but said the effectiveness of the government regulator had been undermined by budget cuts.

Worksafe are investigating, that should give us all a warm fuzzy feeling that we will all be safe - Not.

Just how lucky are we?

Are we lucky to have the spin?

Letter published in Sound Telegraph 31-03-10

This comment piece by 'Uncle Les' from Medina on the subject is a classic:

"Carol said i`m lucky it must be true I think industry isn`t mucky and the air here doesn`t stink

The pollution isn`t harmfull it wouldn`t hurt a fly those clouds are just a bit of wool a floating in the sky

The noise i here is in my mind the modelling say`s it`s so and KIC is just so kind in handing out the dough

we have no need to monitor for it passes overhead nothing in the air no more the regulator said oh yes i do believe the spin i hear it all the while what they tell me is no sin cos they always smile

they use the graph and table to show me that it`s good I`m just too silly and unable to think-- as if i could

Oh lucky lucky lucky me i believe you yes i do no harm can come from industry and pigs can fly-- yes it`s true"

Tiwest update

Udate: Pictures of Tiwest Titanium Dioxide emissions added to 'another worker affected at Tiwest' blog.

"Titanium Dioxide (Ti02) has been listed as an IARC-2B carcinogen. They have proven that ultra fine particles (dust) of Titanium Dioxide causes cancer in animals. Insufficient research has been done on the effects of Ti02 on humans."

See past blog posts on Tiwest here (Tiwest search of this blog).

Also see Kwinana Health Statistics.

Is it only Steam?

Some people in this community are upset by this advertisement for BHPbilliton that appeared in our local media some time ago:As can be seen BHPbilliton claim:

"when you notice 'smoke' billowing from the refinery, rest assured that it is most likely steam you can see"

The claims in the advertisement are not wrong, just misleading to those in the community who don't know any better.

Of course there was no mention of any pollutants, it seems it was all about getting the community to think... harmless water.

The emissions from the vents in question include but are not limited to Heavy Metals such as Nickel, Cobalt, maybe Cadmium. Also Hydrogen, Ammonium Sulphate and Ammonia, Probably the most concerning of the pollutants emitted is fine particulates of Metals.

The main reason you can see so much steam is because the online vent tanks are injected (snuffed) with steam to avoid Hydrogen explosions.

These are our photo's of the tank vents in question:

and closer: By the pics it certainly looks like this vent take has overflowed at some time, problem with that is the a high liquid level like that usually lift the demister pad (a bit like steel wool) inside the top of tank, these dont always reseat themselves, probably allowing more particlute pollution to escape.

Does it look like harmless water vapour to you? Now you have both sides of the story, make your own mind up, just steam or pollutants and steam?

You can find a list of estimated emissions from BHPBillitons Kwinana Nickel Refinery at the Federal Governments National Pollution Inventory (NPI) website.