By Melanie Sjoberg
MELBOURNE — For two days last week, the city was engulfed by black clouds of toxic fumes as fire raged through the Coode Island chemical storage facilities. Emergency services were stretched to the limit. Evacuations around the site were carried out. City office workers were asked to stay indoors. Roads were blocked off for hours.
Ten to 12 storage tanks containing well over 6 million litres of chemicals went up in flames, poisoning the atmosphere.
After speculation that the fire, which began on Wednesday, might have been started by a lightning strike, it is now believed that it self-ignited. The explosion on Thursday, which sent an enormous fireball hundreds of metres into the sky, was started by a ruptured pipe.
These events follow a transport depot fire in Yarraville the previous weekend which left residents confused and angry. Firefighters were unable to find a register of chemicals stored at the site, and fears were aroused by a number of explosions.
Emergency meetings of action groups, environmental authorities and state government bodies have been called to assess the situation.
The incident has highlighted weaknesses in the state disaster plan. Services are coordinated between police, firefighters and other emergency services, but there was still confusion. Residents seeking advice from police at the site could not get information.
The Environmental Protection Agency could not ascertain quickly what chemicals were contained in the smoke cloud. There was no contact point established for people to report medical effects. On the second day foam used to quell the fire was running out, and stocks had to be replenished from interstate. At the same time, Tullamarine airport was hampered because its emergency services had been called to the fire.
The Port of Melbourne Authority is proceeding with the disbanding of its emergency service despite the major role it played in the emergency.
Campaign
Coode Island has been the focus of a campaign by the Hazardous Materials Action Group (HAZMAG) for several years. Paul Adams, an activist in HAZMAG, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that this was only one in a series of potential disasters involving toxic chemicals. "It is a follow-up to the Butlers fire in '85,
United Transport in '88 and the South Dynon disaster in 1990."
Adams said that no-one knows precisely how much is in storage at Coode Island at any one time, but more than 653 million litres passed through in 1989. "Toluene di-isocyanate and methyl isocyanate are two of the most likely products, along with acrylonitrile, which burns to form cyanide gas. These are the same chemicals that went up in Bhopal", he said.
Adams also said HAZMAG intends to organise an early campaign, placing the emphasis clearly on the Labor government. "This is a safe Labor seat", he said. "This government is making a lot of money from Coode Island. The Port of Melbourne Authority charges a high rental from the chemical industries on the site. The chemical industries benefit from low transport costs because they are on the edge of the city."
Clive Rosewarne from Friends of the Earth said on 3CR radio that it was necessary to question whether we need these sorts of storage facilities. "The real problem is the reliance on the chemical industry. Benzine is a petrol-based solvent used for foam packaging. It is highly flammable and carcinogenic. In low doses it can cause giddiness and headaches."
He concluded, "Moving away from residential zones is not the answer; it just hides the effects. Any accidents would still impact upon Melbourne. The solution is to change the dependence."
Legal mockery
Joan Coxsedge, MLC for the seat of Melbourne West, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that she had questioned Neil Pope, the minister for labour, in caucus about the relocation of Coode Island but had been fobbed off. "My view is that it should certainly be relocated. It is not a poor industry, but most of the money goes overseas. We are being treated like a Third World dumping ground.
"This industry must be regulated tightly by government. High maximum fines exist, but there is no minimum, which therefore makes of mockery of the system. The legal system also does not take these breaches seriously."
Chris Kiely, state secretary of the Transport Workers Union, one of the unions covering workers at Coode Island, told me that one truck had been destroyed from the initial explosion and that potentially there could have been six deaths. He described the site as a "time bomb".
Kiely said the TWU would be holding a meeting of organisers and members. "We don't want to get bogged down in infuriating working parties", he said. "We need some form of direct action." The TWU would liaise with community groups and assist where possible. "The difference with Coode Island is
that it is everybody's concern. If that goes, it will be an environmental catastrophe."
More than 50 people attended an emergency meeting of HAZMAG which decided to organise a rally and march in the city for Thursday, August 29, at 4.30 p.m. Residents expressed a lot of anger at the failure of the state government to deal with this issue. The effect has been felt throughout the city, so plans were made to mobilise as many people as possible. Information stalls, mass leafleting and radio publicity will be conducted over the week.
Premier Joan Kirner has rejected calls to move the facility, saying there were no quick fix solutions. The government has proposed a two-stage inquiry, first into Coode Island and then into the transport and use of chemicals in general.
The issue will not go away. Serious toxic hazards have been an ongoing problem in Melbourne for many years:
- The 1985 Butlers Transport fire cost EPA $1million to clean up.
- In the 1989 United Transport fire, flames burning on a 60-metre front came close to 3500 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate.
- Last year at Dynon Road, leaks in 122 drums of sodium dithionite released a toxic cloud, forcing the evacuation of 850 people.
The state Dangerous Goods Act of 1985 requires a labelling system for chemical storage — hence the HAZCHEM logo on many sites around Melbourne. It also requires a computerised register of storage facilities and specially equipped firefighting teams.
In 1990, legislation allocated responsibility for environmental offences personally to company directors.
According to legal advice provided at the HAZMAG meeting, the Ministry of Labour has the power to withdraw licences if a company contravenes the act, but this has not occurred. A decision in the Victorian Supreme Court last year opened the way for the public to bring charges where offences have occurred and proper investigation has not been carried out. The ability of small groups to pursue these avenues is restricted by legal costs.
Countrywide problem
The danger posed by Coode Island is not an isolated phenomenon.
- Greenpeace exposed the dispersal of toxic wastes from the Nufarm plant in Victoria and also from the Caltex refinery
at Kurnell in Sydney.
- Drums leaking PCBs were discovered in a warehouse near a children's playground in Sydney in 1989.
- Residents of Londonderry in Sydney discovered they are living on top of a toxic waste dump from which chemicals were seeping up through the ground.
- Arsenic poisoning of several blocks of built-up land was discovered at Ardeer in Melbourne.
- The Brisbane suburb of Kingston has suffered health problems from toxic wastes seeping up from an abandoned mine.
- Large numbers of fish have died in the Parramatta and Murray rivers, while others have been tested positive with dioxin contamination.
- Striking workers at the Hoechst plant in Melbourne exposed long-standing irregularities in safety standards with the use of DCBs, which can cause cancer.
The manufacture, transport, storage and disposal of these chemicals are all threats to the environment and public health. Leaving it up to companies regulate themselves is clearly not satisfactory. The community has a right not only to know what is being produced but also to have a say in decisions, which are otherwise made purely on the basis of profits.
Clearly Coode Island must be closed. But as a speaker at the HAZMAG meeting pointed out, "It is not good enough just to win that one; we need to make the link with the other chemical and environmental problems. We don't want them just to shift it to Altona."
We cannot allow the government and industry to fob off the issue into another task force or fake consultative process. The community and the planet no longer have time for tinkering at the edges.