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Speaker 1: Impex has reported an oil spill at its Darwin facility,

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Speaker 1: with about one thousand liters flowing towards mangroves around the harbor.

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Speaker 1: The Anti Environment Department says thirty six thousand leaders of

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Speaker 1: heating medium fluid split from a natural gas processing unit

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Speaker 1: on October twelve. Now, about one thousand liters of the

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Speaker 1: oil from that floor went into a storm water drain

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Speaker 1: and beyond the facility due to heavy rain. The company

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Speaker 1: say that they've been using absorbent pads and sucker trucks

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Speaker 1: to clean up that spell, with water samples from Monday

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Speaker 1: showing no contamination. But it does indeed follow the revelations

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Speaker 1: earlier this week that the gas giant had significantly under

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Speaker 1: reported emissions of a cancer causing compound. Now joining me

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Speaker 1: on the line is the Environment Center's Anti executive director,

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Speaker 1: Kirsty Howie. Good morning to you, Kirsty.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time this morning. Now, MPEAS

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Speaker 1: yesterday posted a statement on their website admitting to under

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Speaker 1: a reporting emissions of benzene by thirteen four hundred percent

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Speaker 1: in twenty three twenty four. First off, can you break

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Speaker 1: those numbers down for us?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sort of feels like it's one thing after

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Speaker 2: the other at the moment with environmental incidents in Darwen Harbor.

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Speaker 2: But essentially what's happened is Impects has had there's been

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Speaker 2: a requirement under federal law for them to report their

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Speaker 2: air toxic emissions from their facility, and they do that

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Speaker 2: to the federal government, and they have been emitting huge

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Speaker 2: amounts of toxic emissions for quite a long time. It

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Speaker 2: was something that was raised last year actually that they

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Speaker 2: had emitted twenty two times the volatile organic compounds which

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Speaker 2: include benzine from that site. But it now appears that

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Speaker 2: this was a vast underestimation and a miscalculation and the

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Speaker 2: numbers are actually much much higher. So yeah, I was

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Speaker 2: pretty flawed when I saw at the increase in what

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Speaker 2: they'd reported. This is just in the last year. We've

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Speaker 2: got to get them to look at all the previous years.

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Speaker 2: Was an increase of thirteen thousand, four hundred percent, so

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Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty four times what they emitted. And look,

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Speaker 2: benzene is it's harmful to health And what medical experts

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Speaker 2: and pediatricians and air quality experts say is there really

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Speaker 2: is no safe level of Benzene, So we should be

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Speaker 2: worried about any of it going into our airshed to

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Speaker 2: be honest.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that that's what people all be sort

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Speaker 1: of wondering this morning. Curses. They'll be thinking to themselves, well,

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Speaker 1: is this, you know, as bad as what Summer saying

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Speaker 1: it is, or is this a situation where you know

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Speaker 1: it's been happening and there doesn't appear to have been

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Speaker 1: any impacts on our health. So you know, they'll be wondering,

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Speaker 1: I guess whether it is going to impact them or

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Speaker 1: whether it's a bit of fear mongering.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they're fair questions, and the bottom line

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Speaker 2: is like, we don't have hard evidence that this is

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Speaker 2: causing you know, direct impacts to human health right now,

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Speaker 2: and we don't want to engender panic in the community.

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Speaker 2: But it's pretty clear that this company's got some questions

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Speaker 2: to answer, and you know, it comes off the back

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Speaker 2: of you know, a raft of other incidents in the

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Speaker 2: Harbor and some real questions about whether this industry, this

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Speaker 2: facility and others are being regulated properly. And there have

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Speaker 2: been questions raised time and time again about whether we

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Speaker 2: have got adocuate oversight. So we'll leave it to the

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Speaker 2: experts to analyze whether this is actually causing harm to

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Speaker 2: human health. But I think what people in Darwin should

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Speaker 2: be doing is asking questions about it and asking, look,

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Speaker 2: how did impects get away with underreporting this for seven

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Speaker 2: or eight years? How did that happen? You know, why

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Speaker 2: when people raised the alarm last year about these emissions

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Speaker 2: and you know, associated with middle Arm, why didn't that

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Speaker 2: prompt some action by the regulator. So they are the

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Speaker 2: kinds of questions that people should be asking. And we

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Speaker 2: really do need impacts and the Northern Territory EPA and

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Speaker 2: really also you know that the Chief Minister and the

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Speaker 2: Environment Minister to answer the questions that the community has

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Speaker 2: because we're just getting piecemeal bits of information.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that you know? I mean, obviously it

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Speaker 1: does raise questions about the self reporting system. Do you

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Speaker 1: think there needs to be some changes there or what

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Speaker 1: else do you think we need to be looking at?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this has always been the accusation about

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Speaker 2: the way that big industry is regulated in the Northern

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Speaker 2: Territory that it's very much about self regulation and self

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Speaker 2: reporting and that has been shown time and time again

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Speaker 2: not to work. We need a higher degree of rigor here.

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Speaker 2: Questions need to be asked, you know, regulators also need

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Speaker 2: to be properly resourced to ask the questions and do

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Speaker 2: the research. And some would say, look, this is evidence

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Speaker 2: of the system working that there's been self reporting, But gosh,

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Speaker 2: this is only after a lot of scrutiny of this

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Speaker 2: facility of Santos with their Darwen LNG twenty year leak,

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Speaker 2: the revelation about the leaking potentially leaking jet fuel tanks

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Speaker 2: in Darwin Harbor. So you kind of get the sense that,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's only public pressure that's causing these disclosures

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Speaker 2: to happen, and that's a good thing, I would say,

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Speaker 2: And I'd say to people, keep it up, keep asking

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Speaker 2: the questions, because we actually are getting some information now,

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Speaker 2: but you've got to ask what else is being hidden?

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Speaker 1: Can see when it comes to you know, the oil

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Speaker 1: spill and due to the heavy rain potentially entering Darwin

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Speaker 1: Harbor and surrounding mangrove areas, I mean, first off, whattcherr

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Speaker 1: reaction to that. But do you think that the cleanup

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Speaker 1: and what's happened in the aftermath is sufficient.

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Speaker 2: Look, again, I'm happy that it was reported to the EPA,

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Speaker 2: So that's a positive as it should have been. It

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Speaker 2: would have actually been in a sense not to have

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Speaker 2: that reported. This has happened before, and this hasn't been

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Speaker 2: reported yet. So digging around in some of the public

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Speaker 2: documentation around the site, which is something that I do

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Speaker 2: which is very boring, you know, this particular part of

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Speaker 2: the facility that this has caused an oil spill in

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Speaker 2: the past. So it's happened again, and we've got to

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Speaker 2: sort of ask why does this keep happening? What else

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Speaker 2: is going on? And yeah, you know, accidents do happen,

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Speaker 2: but we definitely don't want anything like oil going into

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Speaker 2: the harbor that does cause an impact locally. You know,

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Speaker 2: we know this is an area around Middle Arm, you know,

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Speaker 2: the Elizabeth River estuary that's highly fished. So and also

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Speaker 2: that's sort of what the community has always said to

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Speaker 2: us is no discharges are okay into the harbor. So

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Speaker 2: that's something that's just not acceptable to the community. And

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Speaker 2: impacts is going to have to show us that that

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Speaker 2: didn't cause harm and that it won't happen again.

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Speaker 1: I know some listening this morning might go all right, well,

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Speaker 1: they use the absorbent pads and the sucker trucks to

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Speaker 1: clean up the spill with those water samples and showing

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Speaker 1: no contamination. I mean, is that sort of good enough though,

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Speaker 1: the cleaning up of the aftermath, or do you think

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Speaker 1: that there needs to be more done to stop it

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Speaker 1: in the first place?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that's always a question. So

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Speaker 2: I won't pass judgment on sort of their incident response.

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Speaker 2: You know, I don't sort of have any more details

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Speaker 2: other than what's been put on the website that they're

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Speaker 2: not very detailed. I think you do. When things happen

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Speaker 2: again and again, you've got to ask, like should this

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Speaker 2: have happened at all? And Impex has been in sort

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Speaker 2: of a shut down maintenance period for a while, there's

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Speaker 2: been flaring, there's been maintenance done on various assets, including

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Speaker 2: this one, so there should have been a really high

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Speaker 2: degree of scrutiny as everything started up again. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is supposed to be maintenance. It fixes problems like this,

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Speaker 2: so it's a real if those fixes haven't worked well.

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Speaker 1: Kirsty Howie, the Environment Center NT's executive director, I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate your time today. Thanks very much for having a

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Speaker 1: chat with us.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Katie Thanking me on, thank you,