BP Safety still under question

Another BP refinery in the US has recieved a fine for 'wilful' safety breaches:

"USA: BP fined again for 'wilful' safety breaches

The US government safety watchdog has fined British oil giant BP PLC $3 million (£2m), citing safety problems at its Toledo, Ohio, refinery. The move comes just four months after it imposed a record safety penalty on the company over its refinery in Texas (Risks 431). The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said that it had cited the Toledo refinery, which is jointly owned by BP and Canada's Husky EnergyInc., with 42 alleged wilful violations and 20 alleged serious violations for exposing workers to safety hazards. The infractions stem from an OSHA investigation at Toledo that began last September. 'OSHA has found that BP often ignored or severely delayed fixing known hazards in its refineries,' Secretary of Labor Hilda L Solis said in a statement. 'There is no excuse for taking chances with people's lives. BP must fix the hazards now.' Last October, OSHA slapped an $87 million fine on BP, the largest in the agency's history, for failing to correct safety problems identified after the 2005 explosion at Texas City. BP said it was disappointed that OSHA had chosen to characterise the majority of its audit findings as wilful. The US regulator defines wilful violations as those committed with indifference to employee safety and health, and with intentional disregard for the law".
Story from: TUC in the UK

The appauling story of BP internationally can be found on Hazards Magazine.

An example of how we have been questioning the safety of the BP Kwinana Refinery can be found here, alternatively see the search of this blog for BP is here.

What do you think the chances are of BP Kwinana refinery ever being taken to task by our authorities?

BP Oil Rig explodes off US coast

File photo BP Kwinana

BP worldwide safety still under question with another incident. This time an oil rig off the US coast explodes and 11 workers were missing.

For more news on BP Safety:

The oil rig explosion story here.

Other recent BP incidents here:

BP Kwinana Safety questioned here and here.

Kwinana Industry (including BP) emergency concerns here.

An appauling record of safety problems for BP worldwide here.

Alternatively search this blog for BP.

Also in news on BP this week is the story Bloody Oil

Update: 29-04-10: Graphic photographs of and report on the incident here (PDF).

The struggle continues into 2010

Hello all,

My apologies for the long delay in posting a blog, but due to personal issues I had to slow down, and will be intermittently out of action over the next few months but I am so pleased to see that so many of you still come back so often to check this blog even with the long absence between posts.

I have been working on how we also need to also change the way we do things to match the times and the hot issues. Some of the issues we have been working on and/or I will hopefully soon be blogging about are:

Kwinana Town Council:

Kwinana Council mislead its ratepayers over the latest rate hike - rates increase was closer to THIRTY percent not five percent as stated by the council and reported in the local media.

Kwinana Golf Club (on land owned by Kwinana Council) Plan to destroy huge mature native Tuart Trees (Possibly hundreds of years old) to make way for an unnecessary fairway realignment. (This could turn similar to the Thornlie Tree Man case).

Kwinana Council set to build on Kwinana's Public Open space (Parks and Ovals), In particular Medina, something that we have been until now been successful in fighting for nearly 20 years, and ironically our Mayor was apparently involved in that fight as a member of the Kwinana Watchdog Group. Those leading that fight like my late Mother will be turning over in their graves at what is happening now. It seems divide and conquer tactics and greed could possibly be high on the agenda.

Whilst pleading poverty and claiming it couldn't maintain required community infrastructure Kwinana Council apparently invests and loses somewhere between 8 and 11 million dollars of ratepayers money, and yet Council still have not satisfactorily explained their actions or been held accountable. How can a poverty stricken Council invest $8-11 million when they can't carry out basic infrastructure needs and improvements and for numerous years in a row now have inflicted massive rates hikes on ratepayers.

Industry:

With the liberal government at the helm in WA its even more a case of what industry wants industry gets. Our government does not run this state big corporate industry does... This state is under corporate control. Daylight saving and extended shopping hours are a prime example of how government ignores the wishes of the people and does what industry wants.

This blog was apparently assessed by spooks to assess the level of threat to either Kwinana Industry, National Security or both? Who did the checking? Who hired the security company concerned? and who authorised it?

Water Corporation with, it seems the support of the states premium environmental organisation starts trials of injecting treated sewage into underground aquifers for future use as drinking water. I (and many others) strongly believe that with all the mining and related industry in Western Australia, which are major water users, it is totally unnecessary to take the risk of drinking treated sewage when there are more suitable ways of using that water and conserving our water. Current water treatment does not remove all drugs, chemicals and pathogens.

BP receives massive US fine for Texas Refinery explosion, inquiry exposed a multitude of issues including ways in which BP bought community/government/regulator support.

Poisoned BP workers get $100m payout . - This link also includes many other stories on safety/risk at BP refineries.

How major corporate industry in Kwinana (eg. BP) buys community, including community/environmental group support.

How BP allegedly used the threat of anti-terrorism laws in an attempt to silence a community member from asking questions on ongoing safety safety concerns of the BP Kwinana Refinery.

Safety of BP Refinery Kwinana still under question. As predicted another heat exchanger fails, luckily with no serious consequences this time.

BHP Billiton misleads the community with propaganda that claims visible pollution from its flash tank stacks is only steam/water vapour, but convieniently fails to mention Nickel and Ammonia along with many other pollutants.

BHP Billiton makes the wild claim that its Kwinana Nickel Refinery would have to shutdown in the event a planned extension of Mundijong Road went ahead behind its Baldivis liquid waste effluent ponds. If these ponds only ever contained storm water and not process liquors, like they should, there wouldn't be a problem.

Investigations are incomplete but it has been alleged that contamination of groundwater from BHPBilliton leaks has killed more trees in Baldivis.

We question BHPBilliton Kwinana over the need to pump its liquid waste to evaporation ponds in Baldivis instead of spending the money and installing an effluent treatment plant on the refinery site. Hundreds of ha of land around the Baldivis ponds and the lines to the ponds have been highly contaminated with heavy metals and ammonium sulphate etc from years of ongoing leaks.

It seems Fremantle Ports doesn't need Spin Doctors as some so called community/environmental group reps try and do that job for them. The toxic plume caused by dredging Fremantle Harbour causes more controversy so obviously not everyone has been got at.

The DEC (Department of Environmental Protection) suddenly (but as we expected them to) drop criminal negligence charges against Alcoa, and refuse to say why!

Erin Brockovich v Alcoa legal case continues.

Erin Brockovich's legal team investigates possible legal action against Cockburn Cement for alleged health complaints in the surrounding community.

Cockburn Cement plans to burn contaminated waste oil (they call it recycled oil) at its Munster Plant.

...and much more...

Its a real shame we don't seem to have any politicians showing an interest in these issues.

Interesting times ahead. Please stay tuned.

Questions over safety of Nalco oil dispersant

Clipping from Community Newspaper Kwinana Courier

NALCO is the company supplying the oil dispersant Corexit to BP for use on the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher.

Ironicly at the same time as the above photograph was taken of Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams with NALCO manager at Kwinana, serious questions where being raised about the safety/toxicity of this NALCO product and the effects it could have on every living thing in its path.

BP has sprayed hundreds of thousands of litres of the product into the Gulf.

NALCO claims on it website that the water treatment products (oil dispersants) are "safe and highly-effective".

However others are claiming the dispersant is highly toxic and will cause long term damage., indeed the US EPA acknowledges the product is Toxic.

The dispersant has been banned in Europe.

Take a closer look at NALCO's toxic solution here. A video of effected wild life and marine life here. Erin Brockovich talks about dispersants here.

I believe many of the fears are correct are this product could possibly cause serious damage to our planet.

Updates, thanks to information provided by readers:

More info on Corexit Dispersant here.
More concerns of the affects on the Gulf Marine Life here.
Corexit chemical properties released publicly here.
NALCO, BP and and the USEPA until recently kept the ingredients of the Toxic Corexit secret here.
Information on "A newly revealed 'secret ingredient' in Corexit 9500, dioctyl sodium sulfo-succinate has been shown to cause pulmonary edema in animal studies" here.
"Why Toxic Solvents were Used and Covered Up follow the big money" here.
"Evidence of BP oil spill health risks confirm public fears of Corexit toxic cloud" here.
USEPA conducts tests and comments on toxicity of solvents used in the gulf here
'Dirty Hands' by Planet Waves here.

Nalco company history by Crocodyl here.

11-03-2011: NASA confirms toxic dispersant's DID rain down on Gulf Coast and cause chemical injury here.

14-05-2012: Corexit dispersant used by BP during Gulf oil disaster linked to horrific human injuries here

Is BP Kwinana SAFE?

After reading this story from a whistle blower on crikey we are once again left asking: IS BP KWINANA REFINERY SAFE?

Go to the Crikey website http://www.crikey.com.au/ (highly recomended) for more.

Here are examples of a couple of other times that we have asked the question:

BP is the largest oil refinery in Australia

Update: BP response to Crickey is here.

Updates to BP's use of NALCO's Corexit

Please note latest updates to the post on BP's use of NALCO's Corexit dispersant by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Updated 04-08-2010: 

Questions over safety of NALCO's Corexit oil dispersant by BP in the gulf of Mexico.

Tonight’s Best of the Worst

Tiwest are in fine form again tonight with two visible out of the ordinary plumes, one from the emergency stack around 7pm - suspected Titanium Tetrachloride and the biggest from the finishing building stack suspected Titanium Dioxide (Ti02) which has been listed as an IARC-2B carcinogen.

Emissions like this from Tiwest have become an all to common occurrence of late, so what is actually going on at Tiwest?

Runners up:–

BP for its highly visible particulate plume from the cat cracker stack – what happened to the filter that BP won the awards for?

Wesfarmers CSBP for its highly visible ammonium nitrate plume that has become the norm but never should have done had our so called protectors not continued to ignore our concerns.

All this from our "Green and Clean" Kwinana Industry.

Kwinana Industry's - the care bears for Cockburn Sound

Does it give you a warm fuzzy feeling that all of a sudden Kwinana Industry has decided to paint itself as the care bears for Cockburn Sound.

Well the media fell for it why shouldn’t the rest of us?

One cannot help but be very suspicious

Why is Kwinana industry trying so hard to protect Cockburn Sound Management Council?

Maybe you, like I, can read between the lines?

Is it cheaper for Kwinana Industry to provide a paltry amount of funding to a toothless lobby group like CSMC than it is to spend the required amount on pollution control?

Here is a recent letter I wrote:

Response to Cockburn Sound Management Claims April 10, 2008

We are saddened by the case that it seems Cockburn Sound Management Council (CSMC) has fallen into the Kwinana Industry spin trap. We ask the question; were these comments by CSMC approved by the full council?

CSMC says we should forget about the past damage to Cockburn Sound, and claims that 75% of sea grass in Cockburn Sound has been lost, however many Government reports state that 97% of the sea grass in Cockburn Sound has been destroyed. Without doubt the vast majority of this mass destruction has been caused by Industry and can never be repaired. We are sure Kwinana Industry would want the local community to forget about this, but we are sure that the wider community will not.

Since 2000 Cockburn Sound has been described in many Government reports as the 2nd most degraded marine environment in Australia.

Contaminated Groundwater Plumes have either entered Cockburn Sound or are currently entering Cockburn Sound; these include hydrocarbons, arsenic, caustic, metals and radionuclides.

Many other contaminated groundwater plumes or are hanging off the coast threatening to enter Cockburn Sound these plumes include herbicides/pesticides, arsenic, PCB’s etc. In fact at least 13 of these many plumes have been categorised as “high priority” – of high risk to Cockburn Sound.

CS protection policy includes low protection zones – the area’s where industry waste discharges, it is unsafe to fish, swim or carry out any other recreational activities in these areas.

Many Industries still discharge waste to Cockburn Sound, these include: Tiwest/Nufarm Coogee, BP, Water Corp, Advanced Ceramics Plant and Cockburn Cement.

Some of the contaminants being discharged into Cockburn Sound from industry include:

Fluorides, chlorides, sulphates, sodium, hydrocarbons, nitrates, dissolved solids, suspended solids, ammonium compounds, radionuclides (low level radioactive material) and heavy metals including chromium etc.

Past testing has shown that sediments on the sea bed in area’s of Cockburn Sound contain “relatively high levels of contaminants” including Arsenic, TBT’s, Nickel, Mercury, Copper, Chromium and Magnesium.

TBT’s in areas of Cockburn Sound are above guideline levels and are known to be affecting marine life.
A number of industries including BP and Power Stations use sea water from Cockburn Sound as cooling water etc, this water is returned to Cockburn Sound heated and can contain contaminants such as anti-scaling compounds.

We have seen examples in the past where sample point locations in Cockburn Sound have been moved from previous points which has resulted in lower concentrations of contaminants reported, giving the false belief that sediment contamination has reduced, we question whether this practice still takes place?

At the end of the claims made have awoken the local community. Many in the community are outraged at the way the Cockburn Sound issue is being portrayed.

Cockburn Sound Research References:

1. Kwinana Industrial Area Central Core Environmental Strategy.
2. Southern Metropolitan Coastal Waters Study.
3. Perth’s Coastal Waters Environmental Values and Objectives EPA February 2000.
4. Tiwest Expansion to 180,000 tpa Consultative Environmental Review.
5. James Point Private Port Public Environmental Review.
6. Major Findings of the state of the Marine Environment report. Ocean Rescue 2000 program.
7. Towards Optimising Kwinana Final Report.
8. Kwinana Regional Strategy.
9. Rockingham Kwinana Community the way life should be 2000.
10. D.E.P.
11. Com-Net.
12. Letter of response from DEP Kwinana July 2001.
13. State of Cockburn Sound Cockburn Sound Management Council 2004 and 2007.
14. Status of groundwater quality in the Cockburn Sound catchment CSIRO February 2006.
15. The Geomorphology and Sediments of Cockburn Sound 2005.
16. Seiching in Cockburn Sound UWA 2001.
17. Hydrology and aquifer propagation in Cockburn Sound CSIRO 2001
18. Case study of modern sediments and stratigraphy of Cockburn Sound.

I am not suggesting other pressures have no effect or risk, but still believe that the risk from Industry including its discharges to the sound, its many contaminated groundwater plumes and the pollution from the air that falls on Cockburn Sound are still probably the biggest threat.

Also what effect does excessive noise have on the Marine Life of Cockburn Sound.

Hopefully the wider community will see right through this as I do.

Update : See Polluter should pay for the update of this story.

Kwinana Industries Emergency Communication System FAILS AGAIN

On Sunday (9-11-08) at 11:23am Hismelt had a massive explosion of gases and coal dust, apparently from the emergency relief valves or pressure relief valves (whichever you prefer to call them).

This explosion was heard and felt throughout Kwinana, Rockingham and parts of Cockburn, The subsequent black mushroom cloud over Kwinana industry could be seen from a great distance.

By 11:26am my phones were going off, people from as far as Wellard, Parmelia, Rockingham ringing to tell me of the explosion and/or try and find out what was going on. Some workers from the strip also rang as they weren't sure what was going on. At first I thought it must have been BP Refinery, so went down to the strip and checked with Security and BP and Wesfarmers LPG and determined it came from Hismelt direction. Security at Hismelt confirmed it was an explosion, flames and cloud of smoke from the plant.

It was confirmed that the Kwinana Industries Mutual Aid (KIMA) emergency notification system was not used... ie. Each Kwinana Industry has at least one two way radio tuned to the emergency KIMA channel, in the event of an incident such as this industry is meant to notify each other via this emergency radio system.

It was also confirmed that the incident was not recorded on the emergency community information hot line # 1300 304 346 until over 24 hrs after the incident. So the community like those in surrounding industries where also kept in the dark.

This happens just about everytime something goes wrong in Kwinana Industry, the emergency communication systems fail, but as happened last time Kwinana Industry will probably attempt to shift the focus back to the community reps that are airing the concerns.

As a part of Hismelt's license it is required to report incidents to the DEC - This incident was not reported to the DEC by Hismelt, the community reported the incident to the DEC on Monday morning and the DEC had not been contacted by Hismelt.

It is my belief (feel free to correct me if I am wrong) That Hismelt is required to report incidents to the DOCEP - This incident was not reported to the DOCEP by Hismelt again the community reported the incident to DOCEP.

Will this company be held accountable for the above probable breaches - Probably Not - Why? Because it is another multinational mining giant that seems to me to be above our law.

Does this make you feel comfortable that Kwinana Industry is keeping you informed and safe? What will happen when the Big One occurs? I suggest it would be absolute chaos and no-one will know what is going on.

Is it really to much to ask for an emergency communication system that works and is used? Or is it easier for Kwinana Industry to once again play divide and conquer tactics and claim it is only a minority of the community that are affected/concerned?

Update 14-11-08: Paragraphs 7,8 and 9 have been changed slightly due to a request from Kwinana Industry. Kwinana Industry claims Hismelt did report the incident to the DEC and that they are not required to report incidents to DOCEP. For now we will have to agree to disagree on those opinions because it is still my belief that the community actually reported the incident to the DEC first thing Monday morning and until then the DEC knew nothing of it. It is also my belief that industries that come under the mines act regulations are required to report to DOCEP

"Industry do not pollute"

 After the blog post of yesterday asking should the Cockburn Sound Management Council - CSMC be sacked? I think this media article of today, wherein Kwinana Industry goes to bat for CSMC answers that question perfectly.

CSMC have since around 2007/8 been over protective of Kwinana Industry and it became obvious that something was wrong when Kwinana Industry and Cockburn Sound Management Council worked hand in hand to mislead the community over the state of Cockburn Sound, now Kwinana Industry has come out protecting CSMC, this has just answered the question for me.

Cockburn Sound Management Council should be sacked, but of course they won't be, because deep down this is exactly how the government and our politicians want it to be. 

Interesting in this article Kwinana Industry makes the claim "Industry do not pollute". In the years I have been attempting to keep Kwinana Industry honest (and obviously I have failed miserably) I have heard some ripper claims, but this just takes the cake - "Industry do not pollute". 

Hello, Kwinana Industry does pollute - big time; Kwinana industry pollutes the air, Kwinana industry pollutes the land and Kwinana industry pollutes the water and has a 50 year history of doing so.

Kwinana industries such as Tiwest, for example, still pump industrial waste into Cockburn Sound. Waste such as Radionuclide's (radioactive material) and cadmium. Industries like BP for example use Cockburn Sound water for cooling, they add to this water chemicals such as Chlorine and discharge the water back to Cockburn Sound. Sound pollution and light pollution from Kwinana Industry impacts on Cockburn Sound and its marine life.

Groundwater polluted by industry still enters Cockburn Sound, for example hydrocarbons from BP, Arsenic from Wesfarmers CSBP, Ammonium Sulphate etc, etc, etc.

For Kwinana Industry to claim they do not pollute is a joke, but sadly the joke is on this community and our environment.

Lets not forget that industry in Kwinana are licensed by the government (DEC) to pollute.

Why do Kwinana Industry want MSW incineration

Why is Kwinana Industry so keen to be involved in a municipal waste incinerator?

Exactly what is Alcoa's involvement?

For the record: The Kwinana Industries Council Director is married to Kwinana Council Mayor Carol Adams. He was also involved in another incinerator proposal for Kwinana in 2000-2004 when he was working for Kwinana Council, that proposal, although approved by Kwinana Council, thankfully never saw the light of day because of the very real concerns.

Click on image to enlarge

Kwinana Industry has become so very predictable in branding any one who dare disagree or speak out, as negative.

It seems the Kwinana community is being mislead and kept in the dark over this incinerator proposal.

You may also like to read related posts:

Consultation what consultation?

Clean Incineration is a dirty lie.

Incineration is not recycling.

Something in the air - Kwinana pollution.

Update: As expected Kwinana Industry wants ratepayers to provide an incinerator so industries like Alcoa, BP and Verve can have a cheap, hide the nasties fix for their hazardous/toxic waste. Only problem is that the Kwinana community will be paying to breath the pollution from burning that waste.

Spin, Spin and more Spin

I am getting dizzy with all the spin.

Meeting Minutes should not be Spin

I along with other community members, including a few that for some reason seem to think that corporate giants the likes of Alcoa, BHP Billiton, Tiwest, Wesfarmers, Coogee Chemicals, Cockburn Cement, BP etc that make up Kwinana Industry are not big enough to protect themselves - I digress... 

Anyway we were invited by Kwinana Industry to attend a meeting to discuss a/ How industry can fund health programs in the community and b/ How industry can improve community member representation at CIF's. The background of these issues are:

1/ Soon after we started raising concerns that excess health problems in Kwinana could be related to pollution from Kwinana industry, industry started to fund (and attend) dinners and get togethers for our local GP's.  Then industry started to fund GP's projects, you know; $10,000 here, $10,000 there for example. While some may think there is nothing wrong with that, others may be more curious. Some in the community had complained that this might be seen as a conflict of interest for our GP's, while some voiced concern that this may even been perceived as a form of corruption.

2/ Kwinana Industry holds a bi-monthly meeting with the community and authorities, called the Community Industries Forum - CIF, which is basically meant to be an exchange of information session. Community member attendance at these meetings has been poor, and continues to decline.

The minutes for this meeting were recently released, and after reading these minutes I was left wondering if this was actually the same meeting I had attended because the minutes certainly did not appear representative of the list of things I had raised, or indeed issues that I had heard others raise.

Surely I can be forgiven for briefly wondering if these minutes and the Kwinana Council minutes discussed in the blog post: Is Kwinana becoming a Dictatorship? were related... but seriously that is not likely to be possible, is it?

A few other examples of the missing items of these minutes are:

I questioned Kwinana industry over its use of the claim that lifestyle problems are solely responsible for the excess of health problems in Kwinana. I pointed out that industry knew as well as I did that there was no scientific evidence to suggest that this was the case, and indeed the Health Department WA own health survey stated that report; 'could not determine the cause of excess health problems in the Kwinana community'. No mention of this discussion/debate appeared in the minutes despite the fact that the points above in regards to our GP's and industry funding were discussed, absolutely no mention of this discussion appeared in the minutes.

Another community member raised a point at the same meeting, that the reason some of the community did not attend the meetings was "because Kwinana industry all too often lied to the community". I then suggested that it may have something to do with industry stooges. Again there was no mention in the minutes of these discussions having taking place .

There are more examples of Kwinana industries treatment of the meeting minutes with spin, spin and more spin, but I'm sure you get the picture.

Is this just another prime example of Kwinana industries attempt to influence by selectively failing to record any items in minutes that they think might tarnish its image, and adding favourable spin to the items they do record?

It's Name and Shame time

file pic of Wesfarmers LPG Flare

With the wind in Kwinana blowing towards the west/south west or away from my house and towards industry, the noise at my front door is still 49-50 db - that's still 15 db above the legal limit of 35db.

So being brave because the wind is blowing the pollution from industry out into Cockburn Sound, I decide to venture down to the industrial strip to track down the noise source, staying upwind of the pollution.

Westfarmers LPG are the main culprit, both emergency flares are burning and the noise at the boundary fence is is running at 78 to 79 db the legal limit is 65db. No doubt it is even higher above ground level ie: closer to the flare. The flares are currently only burning at low levels so it is obvious with the horrific noise we experienced over the past days the flares were burning at higher levels.

I contacted someone in DEC - about the only one in the authorities who will take some action and actually seems to care (Truly - I believe he does). He contacted Wesfarmers LPG and sure enough they have been starting up a new plant over the last 4 or 5 days and have been venting/purging to the flares.

Thanks very much Kwinana Industry. Thanks very much Wesfarmers LPG for consulting the community to let us know you were in the process of commissioning a new plant - NOT.

While I was down on the strip I decided to check out the noise levels at a few other industries I could get to - HiSmelt was at least 5db above the legal limit on its south boundary fence.

I didn't want to venture any deeper into industry for obvious reasons, but these industries have in the not too distant past, also admitted to regularly exceeding the legal boundary limit: BP Refinery, Tiwest, Wesfarmers CSBP, Wesfarmers Air Liquid'e, BHP Billiton Nickel West, Verve Energy CBH and of course Wesfarmers LPG.

But this time most of the problem as explained above lays with Westfarmers LPG.

Notice how many times the name Wesfarmers crops up? Maybe that noise tape idea (a few blogs down) outside some Wesfarmers LPG shareholders houses would possibly do the trick?

Kwinana Industry the way you treat this community is a disgrace .

Kwinana Council don't bother helping or protecting your community, we will do you job for you, you just carry on covering for big industry.

Now we might be able to get a decent night's sleep.

Goodnight All

Update:

1. Yes the DEC chief was at home when I rang.

2. We have now been informed that NewGen Power has also been commissioning the new power station for a week or so - talk about being treated like mushrooms, I think this is just another indication of how much Kwinana Industry really actually cares about this community.

3. The noise is still there, it is still above legal limits, however it is tolerable at the moment.

How well did you sleep?

Noise Is Pollution

Imagine a neighbour of yours playing music ALL night, or working in their shed ALL night using an electric saw, while you are trying to sleep. What would be done about it? Well if you complained the Police would be around to 1 inform the person to stop producing the noise and 2 if the noise continued would be back to confiscate the equipment producing the noise and 3 if the noise continued said person would probably be arrested and charged, because the community has laws to protect them against excessive noise.

Yet some residents of Kwinana have to put up with illegal levels of noise all night and nothing whatsoever is done, because our authorities must protect industry at any cost...

Take last night for example at my front door the level of noise was around 68db most of the night, the legal limit is 35db. I also received other complaints from as far inland as Parmelia. But will anything be done?

Yes, Kwinana Industries have started another noise reference group to keep the issue buried while they do nothing for another few years, and then are likely to once again attempt to con so called community reps and our regulators into validating another noise modelling report that could not be validated because of lack of actual monitoring...

Yes, it likely that our Kwinana Council will continue to FALSELY claim that Kwinana Industry are exempt from the noise regulations just so they don't have to get involved when they know full well that Kwinanna industry are NOT exempt from the law.

Yes, it is likely that our DEC will continue to DO NOTHING about the ILLEGAL levels of noise that we are exposed to, they won't even monitor the noise because that would provide evidence that the noise problem existed.

Yes, our EPA will continue to approve new noisy industry and allow existing industry already in breach to expand and will continue to make the FALSE claim that this will not add to cumulative noise levels.

Yes the big corporate giants like Wesfarmers and BP will continue to breach noise regulations and just not care because they know they will be protected by those who are paid to protect us from them.

Now try and tell me that corruption does not exist in Kwinana - If this isn't corruption then what is?

I have blogged about this issue before after all this has been going on for over 10 years, so if you feel like a depressing read go here, here, here and here.

We want noise monitoring not modelling... We want action to reduce the impact of cumulative industrial noise on our lives... We want our authorities to stop protecting industry at any cost, and to enforce the laws designed to protect us... Why is this too much to ask?

Explosions, Gas Clouds and Noise

Or just more figments of our imagination?

Over the past couple of weeks as well as the normal stuff that Kwinana Industry dishes out, we have seen/heard:

• Serious gas clouds from Tiwest;
• Black clouds of pollution from Newgen;
• Unsafe levels of noise from Wesfarmers LPG;
• Safety of BP refinery questioned by an insider.

• We are also trying to find out the source of a number of late night/early morning explosions that have been heard from Rockingham to Parmelia, due to past experience we suspect it maybe a furnace at the Fused Materials Plant.

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And they are the one's we know about.
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With all this happening, what have we been told about these incidents by industry?

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Nothing at all. No feed back whatsoever.

.

However industry has continued force feeding us propaganda about how they are "keeping Green and Clean"/"becoming Green and Clean", how noise and air pollution has reduced and how much they care about Cockburn Sound and CSMC.

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More than ever before - This community is being treated like mushrooms by Kwinana Industry.

The Protection Policy that is incapable of protecting

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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Let’s take a close look at the Kwinana EPP (the DEC licences will be another blog):

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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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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;

"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?

Are you tired of the spin?

Premier Allan Carpenter’s speech to the state last night well sums up the state of play in today’s spin doctoring world.

To some, his speech was just another example of the dictator he, or rather this labour government have become. To others it was just another feel good exercise developed by the spin doctors that control much of this states media – One day soon I should post a blog with examples of how, down this part of the world, doctors of spin basically write their own media articles (even front page stories) word for word.

Yes an exercise designed to make the gullible WA public believe they can feel good by sitting in the cold conserving gas for large industrial users, and saving the economy.

The premier failed to tell us that domestic gas use is a mere 3% of the total as big industry sucks the most gas. He also forgot to mention what happened, why it happened - where were the major hazardous facility regulator/s, why the state had no emergency plan for such a crisis, why he refused to enact a state of emergency, why we have to rely on multi-national corporations to provide critical services and when the crisis will be over.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t for one second imagine that the liberal party would have handled the situation any differently or any better, but it does show how our government which ever party is in power, survives on spin rather than skill.

Living alongside some of the states most dangerous major hazardous facilities I will be joining in on the demands to make every bit of the investigation report into this explosion public so we can all see what went wrong and try and ensure it doesn’t happen again elsewhere.

But aren't you just tired of all of the spin.

Update: Check out the latest info on the explosion from an insider posted on Crikey, also a whistle blower on BP Kwinana on the same page.

Particulate Pollution in Kwinana

In 2000 while researching Kwinana pollution and excess of health problems I became concerned at the mounting evidence in medical research of Particulate Matter (PM) pollution. Many more medical studies over the last few years have linked PM to various health problems including those that are in excess in Kwinana.

Fine particles, a major threat to children – “Fine PM is a major threat to children, because of their higher exposure to PM compared to adults, the immature state of the lung in childhood and also of the immune function at birth. The first months of life might be a period of particular sensitivity. Although the mechanisms of air pollution effects have not yet been completely understood, pregnant women, infants and children need specific protection against exposure to fine particles”.

Air Pollution Triggers Blood Clots – “Tiny particles of air pollution -- less than one tenth the width of a human hair -- can trigger clotting in the blood, US researchers said on Thursday in a finding that helps explain how air pollution causes heart attacks and strokes”.

Stroke Risk Linked to Brief Exposure to High Levels of Air Pollution: New research shows high air pollution levels make people more susceptible to suffering a stroke. In previous research, air pollution levels have been connected to daily death rates for respiratory // problems and heart disease. But research on air pollution and stroke has been conflicting. Investigators from Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan conducted a study to compare air pollution levels and stroke hospital admissions.

Respiratory Specialists Bang the Drum About Soot's Dangers - "The science is clear," said John E. Heffner, M.D., president of the American Thoracic Society, which is based here. "People develop respiratory disorders and those with existing lung, heart, and other chronic diseases die prematurely because they are exposed to these microscopic pollutants at levels well below those set by the EPA."

THE DEADLIEST AIR POLLUTION ISN'T BEING REGULATED OR EVEN MEASURED – I have since 2001, been calling for the Government to place license limits, monitoring requirements on licenses, on Industries in Kwinana which emit PM2.5. So far these requests have fallen on deaf ears. Western Australia still has no standard for PM2.5. No Kwinana industry has licence emission limits for PM2.5. No Kwinana industry is required under its license to monitor for PM2.5.

To its Credit BP Kwinana in response to growing community concern installed a filter on it cat-cracker to reduce particulate matter and won various awards. I would like to know how many people got sick or died in Kwinana as a result of the excessive emissions from this source over the last 50 years?

Particulate matter in Kwinana is in my view still a problem with even industry acknowledging that because of lack of studying of PM in the Kwinana Airshed it does not know the impact of PM on the health of the Kwinana Community.

At the end of the day if you don't look for it, don't limit it and don't care about it you won't find a problem, but the problem may find you.

It seems it is a lot easier for Kwinana Industry, the Kwinana Council and the WA Government to deny there is a pollution problem and to blame (without evidence) lifestyle factors as the only cause of excess health problems including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and cancer in the Kwinana Community.

We have the right to know

Flare - BP Kwinana

For many years, (well over 15), communities around the Kwinana Industrial area have been calling for an early warning system in Kwinana, to alert residents should something go wrong in any of Kwinana's major hazardous industry that could possibly pose a threat to nearby residents.

We recently ignited that call again and here is the story: As reported - 'Call for red alert strategy' in the Kwinana Courier 2 weeks ago:

"INDUSTRY and government regulators are being called to task after it was revealed this week there is currently no emergency communication system in place to notify the community of risk from a major emergency on the Kwinana Industrial strip. Kwinana Progress Association president Steve Hesse said the community had demanded such an alert in the past and it had been a concern for many years because of the hazards and incidents that had occurred. We have a right to know if something goes wrong, he said. Mr Hesse wanted to know why the regulatory authorities had not done anything about an alert system".

As reported - 'Ministers blocked WA warning system on Perthnow and in the Australian yesterday:- it seems we are not there yet and it lies at the federal governments feet. We still wait impatiently.