Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Impex has reported an oil spill at its Darwin facility,
with about one thousand liters flowing towards mangroves around the harbor.
The Anti Environment Department says thirty six thousand leaders of
heating medium fluid split from a natural gas processing unit
on October twelve. Now, about one thousand liters of the
oil from that floor went into a storm water drain
(00:22):
and beyond the facility due to heavy rain. The company
say that they've been using absorbent pads and sucker trucks
to clean up that spell, with water samples from Monday
showing no contamination. But it does indeed follow the revelations
earlier this week that the gas giant had significantly under
reported emissions of a cancer causing compound. Now joining me
(00:44):
on the line is the Environment Center's Anti executive director,
Kirsty Howie. Good morning to you, Kirsty.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now, MPEAS
yesterday posted a statement on their website admitting to under
a reporting emissions of benzene by thirteen four hundred percent
in twenty three twenty four. First off, can you break
those numbers down for us?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, it sort of feels like it's one thing after
the other at the moment with environmental incidents in Darwen Harbor.
But essentially what's happened is Impects has had there's been
a requirement under federal law for them to report their
air toxic emissions from their facility, and they do that
to the federal government, and they have been emitting huge
(01:34):
amounts of toxic emissions for quite a long time. It
was something that was raised last year actually that they
had emitted twenty two times the volatile organic compounds which
include benzine from that site. But it now appears that
this was a vast underestimation and a miscalculation and the
(01:55):
numbers are actually much much higher. So yeah, I was
pretty flawed when I saw at the increase in what
they'd reported. This is just in the last year. We've
got to get them to look at all the previous years.
Was an increase of thirteen thousand, four hundred percent, so
one hundred and thirty four times what they emitted. And look,
(02:16):
benzene is it's harmful to health And what medical experts
and pediatricians and air quality experts say is there really
is no safe level of Benzene, So we should be
worried about any of it going into our airshed to
be honest.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, I know that that's what people all be sort
of wondering this morning. Curses. They'll be thinking to themselves, well,
is this, you know, as bad as what Summer saying
it is, or is this a situation where you know
it's been happening and there doesn't appear to have been
any impacts on our health. So you know, they'll be wondering,
I guess whether it is going to impact them or
whether it's a bit of fear mongering.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean they're fair questions, and the bottom line
is like, we don't have hard evidence that this is
causing you know, direct impacts to human health right now,
and we don't want to engender panic in the community.
But it's pretty clear that this company's got some questions
to answer, and you know, it comes off the back
of you know, a raft of other incidents in the
(03:14):
Harbor and some real questions about whether this industry, this
facility and others are being regulated properly. And there have
been questions raised time and time again about whether we
have got adocuate oversight. So we'll leave it to the
experts to analyze whether this is actually causing harm to
human health. But I think what people in Darwin should
(03:36):
be doing is asking questions about it and asking, look,
how did impects get away with underreporting this for seven
or eight years? How did that happen? You know, why
when people raised the alarm last year about these emissions
and you know, associated with middle Arm, why didn't that
prompt some action by the regulator. So they are the
(03:57):
kinds of questions that people should be asking. And we
really do need impacts and the Northern Territory EPA and
really also you know that the Chief Minister and the
Environment Minister to answer the questions that the community has
because we're just getting piecemeal bits of information.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Do you think that you know? I mean, obviously it
does raise questions about the self reporting system. Do you
think there needs to be some changes there or what
else do you think we need to be looking at?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I mean this has always been the accusation about
the way that big industry is regulated in the Northern
Territory that it's very much about self regulation and self
reporting and that has been shown time and time again
not to work. We need a higher degree of rigor here.
Questions need to be asked, you know, regulators also need
(04:48):
to be properly resourced to ask the questions and do
the research. And some would say, look, this is evidence
of the system working that there's been self reporting, But gosh,
this is only after a lot of scrutiny of this
facility of Santos with their Darwen LNG twenty year leak,
the revelation about the leaking potentially leaking jet fuel tanks
(05:10):
in Darwin Harbor. So you kind of get the sense that,
you know, it's only public pressure that's causing these disclosures
to happen, and that's a good thing, I would say,
And I'd say to people, keep it up, keep asking
the questions, because we actually are getting some information now,
but you've got to ask what else is being hidden?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Can see when it comes to you know, the oil
spill and due to the heavy rain potentially entering Darwin
Harbor and surrounding mangrove areas, I mean, first off, whattcherr
reaction to that. But do you think that the cleanup
and what's happened in the aftermath is sufficient.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Look, again, I'm happy that it was reported to the EPA,
So that's a positive as it should have been. It
would have actually been in a sense not to have
that reported. This has happened before, and this hasn't been
reported yet. So digging around in some of the public
documentation around the site, which is something that I do
(06:09):
which is very boring, you know, this particular part of
the facility that this has caused an oil spill in
the past. So it's happened again, and we've got to
sort of ask why does this keep happening? What else
is going on? And yeah, you know, accidents do happen,
(06:30):
but we definitely don't want anything like oil going into
the harbor that does cause an impact locally. You know,
we know this is an area around Middle Arm, you know,
the Elizabeth River estuary that's highly fished. So and also
that's sort of what the community has always said to
us is no discharges are okay into the harbor. So
(06:51):
that's something that's just not acceptable to the community. And
impacts is going to have to show us that that
didn't cause harm and that it won't happen again.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I know some listening this morning might go all right, well,
they use the absorbent pads and the sucker trucks to
clean up the spill with those water samples and showing
no contamination. I mean, is that sort of good enough though,
the cleaning up of the aftermath, or do you think
that there needs to be more done to stop it
in the first place?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean I think that's always a question. So
I won't pass judgment on sort of their incident response.
You know, I don't sort of have any more details
other than what's been put on the website that they're
not very detailed. I think you do. When things happen
again and again, you've got to ask, like should this
have happened at all? And Impex has been in sort
(07:40):
of a shut down maintenance period for a while, there's
been flaring, there's been maintenance done on various assets, including
this one, so there should have been a really high
degree of scrutiny as everything started up again. And yeah,
this is supposed to be maintenance. It fixes problems like this,
so it's a real if those fixes haven't worked well.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Kirsty Howie, the Environment Center NT's executive director, I really
appreciate your time today. Thanks very much for having a
chat with us.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thanks so much, Katie Thanking me on, thank you,
Impex has reported an oil spill at its Darwin facility,
with about one thousand liters flowing towards mangroves around the harbor.
The Anti Environment Department says thirty six thousand leaders of
heating medium fluid split from a natural gas processing unit
on October twelve. Now, about one thousand liters of the
oil from that floor went into a storm water drain
(00:22):
and beyond the facility due to heavy rain. The company
say that they've been using absorbent pads and sucker trucks
to clean up that spell, with water samples from Monday
showing no contamination. But it does indeed follow the revelations
earlier this week that the gas giant had significantly under
reported emissions of a cancer causing compound. Now joining me
(00:44):
on the line is the Environment Center's Anti executive director,
Kirsty Howie. Good morning to you, Kirsty.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Good morning Katie.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now, MPEAS
yesterday posted a statement on their website admitting to under
a reporting emissions of benzene by thirteen four hundred percent
in twenty three twenty four. First off, can you break
those numbers down for us?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, it sort of feels like it's one thing after
the other at the moment with environmental incidents in Darwen Harbor.
But essentially what's happened is Impects has had there's been
a requirement under federal law for them to report their
air toxic emissions from their facility, and they do that
to the federal government, and they have been emitting huge
(01:34):
amounts of toxic emissions for quite a long time. It
was something that was raised last year actually that they
had emitted twenty two times the volatile organic compounds which
include benzine from that site. But it now appears that
this was a vast underestimation and a miscalculation and the
(01:55):
numbers are actually much much higher. So yeah, I was
pretty flawed when I saw at the increase in what
they'd reported. This is just in the last year. We've
got to get them to look at all the previous years.
Was an increase of thirteen thousand, four hundred percent, so
one hundred and thirty four times what they emitted. And look,
(02:16):
benzene is it's harmful to health And what medical experts
and pediatricians and air quality experts say is there really
is no safe level of Benzene, So we should be
worried about any of it going into our airshed to
be honest.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, I know that that's what people all be sort
of wondering this morning. Curses. They'll be thinking to themselves, well,
is this, you know, as bad as what Summer saying
it is, or is this a situation where you know
it's been happening and there doesn't appear to have been
any impacts on our health. So you know, they'll be wondering,
I guess whether it is going to impact them or
whether it's a bit of fear mongering.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, I mean they're fair questions, and the bottom line
is like, we don't have hard evidence that this is
causing you know, direct impacts to human health right now,
and we don't want to engender panic in the community.
But it's pretty clear that this company's got some questions
to answer, and you know, it comes off the back
of you know, a raft of other incidents in the
(03:14):
Harbor and some real questions about whether this industry, this
facility and others are being regulated properly. And there have
been questions raised time and time again about whether we
have got adocuate oversight. So we'll leave it to the
experts to analyze whether this is actually causing harm to
human health. But I think what people in Darwin should
(03:36):
be doing is asking questions about it and asking, look,
how did impects get away with underreporting this for seven
or eight years? How did that happen? You know, why
when people raised the alarm last year about these emissions
and you know, associated with middle Arm, why didn't that
prompt some action by the regulator. So they are the
(03:57):
kinds of questions that people should be asking. And we
really do need impacts and the Northern Territory EPA and
really also you know that the Chief Minister and the
Environment Minister to answer the questions that the community has
because we're just getting piecemeal bits of information.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Do you think that you know? I mean, obviously it
does raise questions about the self reporting system. Do you
think there needs to be some changes there or what
else do you think we need to be looking at?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, I mean this has always been the accusation about
the way that big industry is regulated in the Northern
Territory that it's very much about self regulation and self
reporting and that has been shown time and time again
not to work. We need a higher degree of rigor here.
Questions need to be asked, you know, regulators also need
(04:48):
to be properly resourced to ask the questions and do
the research. And some would say, look, this is evidence
of the system working that there's been self reporting, But gosh,
this is only after a lot of scrutiny of this
facility of Santos with their Darwen LNG twenty year leak,
the revelation about the leaking potentially leaking jet fuel tanks
(05:10):
in Darwin Harbor. So you kind of get the sense that,
you know, it's only public pressure that's causing these disclosures
to happen, and that's a good thing, I would say,
And I'd say to people, keep it up, keep asking
the questions, because we actually are getting some information now,
but you've got to ask what else is being hidden?
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Can see when it comes to you know, the oil
spill and due to the heavy rain potentially entering Darwin
Harbor and surrounding mangrove areas, I mean, first off, whattcherr
reaction to that. But do you think that the cleanup
and what's happened in the aftermath is sufficient.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Look, again, I'm happy that it was reported to the EPA,
So that's a positive as it should have been. It
would have actually been in a sense not to have
that reported. This has happened before, and this hasn't been
reported yet. So digging around in some of the public
documentation around the site, which is something that I do
(06:09):
which is very boring, you know, this particular part of
the facility that this has caused an oil spill in
the past. So it's happened again, and we've got to
sort of ask why does this keep happening? What else
is going on? And yeah, you know, accidents do happen,
(06:30):
but we definitely don't want anything like oil going into
the harbor that does cause an impact locally. You know,
we know this is an area around Middle Arm, you know,
the Elizabeth River estuary that's highly fished. So and also
that's sort of what the community has always said to
us is no discharges are okay into the harbor. So
(06:51):
that's something that's just not acceptable to the community. And
impacts is going to have to show us that that
didn't cause harm and that it won't happen again.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I know some listening this morning might go all right, well,
they use the absorbent pads and the sucker trucks to
clean up the spill with those water samples and showing
no contamination. I mean, is that sort of good enough though,
the cleaning up of the aftermath, or do you think
that there needs to be more done to stop it
in the first place?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I mean I think that's always a question. So
I won't pass judgment on sort of their incident response.
You know, I don't sort of have any more details
other than what's been put on the website that they're
not very detailed. I think you do. When things happen
again and again, you've got to ask, like should this
have happened at all? And Impex has been in sort
(07:40):
of a shut down maintenance period for a while, there's
been flaring, there's been maintenance done on various assets, including
this one, so there should have been a really high
degree of scrutiny as everything started up again. And yeah,
this is supposed to be maintenance. It fixes problems like this,
so it's a real if those fixes haven't worked well.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Kirsty Howie, the Environment Center NT's executive director, I really
appreciate your time today. Thanks very much for having a
chat with us.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Thanks so much, Katie Thanking me on, thank you,
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