To: Cr Jim Soorley <lordmayor@brisbane.qld.gov.au>
Subject: Risk Management Plans (RMPs)  
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 1999 12:03 PM

My dear Lord Mayor

The matter of Risk Management Plans (RMPs) is topical in consideration of the proposed Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology, in Brisbane's inner western suburbs.

The local community have called for an RMP for the Joint Building Project of the UQ / CSIRO, on the site of the existing Cunningham Laboratories adjoining the UQ's St Lucia Campus, at Carmody Road, in residential St Lucia.  No environmental impact assessment, risk assessment, or traffic report have been made available to the residents. Prof John Hay, VC of the UQ, in evidence to the Parliamentary Public Works Committee admitted that the university has no emergency procedures for the community if something goes wrong. The UQ's architect acknowledged that the needs of neighbouring residents were not a part of his brief in designing the building.

Please refer to the attached article from Full Disclosure which details recent developments in the formulation of Risk Management Plans. We understand that the University has submitted the  Institute for Molecular Biology complex to a "code assessment" by the BCC, which requires different issues to be ticked off, but no consultation with the community. We believe that you are looking at the height of the building, at shade, parking, noise and traffic, etc. Our advice is that the IMB project is actually a "material change of use" and therefore "assessable development", and independent environmental engineers have confirmed that they believe the Swanbank power station was a similar situation and was indeed classified as "assessable development".  

In anycase, with the controversy that this proposal has raised, we urge that the BCC adopt a progressive and transparent approach in protection of its citizens, and demand the disclosure of a Risk Management Plan, an impartial Environmental Impact Assessment, and a detailed Traffic Study before endorsing the proposed location of biotech laboratories in residential Brisbane.

We also draw to your attention the concept of Good Neighbour Agreements. The UQ have asserted that they are "good neighbours", and are in the process of establishing a Community Liaison Committee to satisfy the need for "community consultation", highlighted by the Parliamentary Public Works Committee. However, the intention to "adopt a proactive community information and liaison program to discuss the progress of the Institute building", is not what the local community understood to be genuine "community consultation". In its establishment, on the eve of commencing construction, the UQ propose to load the Committee with its own members, to have one of it's main proponents chair the Committee, and have not offered to cover the costs of the community members and their expert advisers in contributing to the process. We urge that any approval of the project by the BCC be conditional upon a satisfactory performance of a Good Neighbour Agreement and "community consultation" process.

Yours sincerely


St Lucia Residents' Association
http://www.rag.org.au/sra

Risk Management Plans (RMPs)
Bicoastal Challenges Face County
Chemical Safety Laws

Sanford Lewis, Editor, Full Disclosure

By June 1999, industries throughout the US will be required to produce chemical accident prevention plans, known as Risk Management Plans (RMPs), in implementation of provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1990.  The RMP requirements, as implemented by USEPA regulations, are controversial with community, environmental and labor organizations due to the failure of EPA to require fundamental safeguards such as public participation, disclosure of underlying safety studies and technologies, and application of inherently safer technologies.  

Under pressure from concerned citizens, and in response to specific incidents, some local governments have begun filling the gaps in this regulatory framework, by establishing local laws and regulations which establish mechanisms for participation, disclosure and use of best technologies.  Now, a mere six months away from the due date for the RMP's, on both coasts local laws providing corporate accountability on industrial safety issues are enmeshed in major fights.  

In Contra Costa County, California, a "Good Neighbor" Ordinance providing local oversight on refinery maintenance projects may soon be amended to require safety plans for entire local facilities.  But according to environmentalists watching the amendment process, the proposed revisions fall short of what is needed.  For instance, Denny Larson of Communities for a Better Environment said the county must require refineries to use the best and safest technology, which, he said, would help prevent accidents like the 1993 General Chemical sulfuric acid leak in Richmond, the 1994 Unocal catacarb leak in Rodeo and the 1997 explosion at Tosco's refinery near Martinez that killed a worker.  

Larson notes that proposed industry-drafted amendments were promoted through gathering of 20,000 signatures gathered by misleading people that they were signing to support "clean air", even though the ordinance has nothing to do with that. Instead of passing the industry amendments, Larson urged the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors to insert clear "Right to Act" provisions in the new refinery safety law.  Proposed revisions would allow plant employees or unions to call for a county audit of a refinery's safety programs, and to require plants to use safer chemicals and equipment unless they document that it is not feasible to do so.

On the east coast, in Passaic, New Jersey, where a County Right to Act law enacted in 1998 established a citizen inspection and oversight process, industry is campaigning for a repeal.  Responding to recent chemical accidents, including one that sent children to the hospital, the Passaic County law enables neighbors and workers to set up Neighborhood Hazard Prevention Advisory Committees that can survey a facility of concern and make recommendations for preventive measures.  But Jim Sinclair, First Vice President of the NJ Business and Industry Association stated, "Who in their right mind thinks it is good public policy to allow a self-appointed group of union activists and local vigilantes to have unrestrained access to your private property?  Why not abolish 1,000 years of private property rights?" Industry has also called the law "socialistic or even
communistic," a "nightmare" and "un-American."  

In reality the Passaic law's empaneling of a group of citizens is not a radical innovation, but rather is an advisory process that improves on the chemical industry's Responsible Care "citizen advisory panels" by ensuring that local citizens, not companies, select oversight groups.  The law's survey provisions are not as strong as other long-standing precedents such as citizen inspection provisions under the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and the provisions of many of the Good Neighbor Agreements established at local industries throughout the U.S. which not only have allowed citizen inspections but also covered the costs of citizens' independent experts.

The outcome of these County struggles is worth watching.  It seems likely that what happens in these places may help to inform future action in many other locations.   

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