www.not-happy-orica.com

The Newcastle Herald reported that last Monday's 6:15 pm leak of hexavalent chromium, at Orica's plant in Stockton, NSW near Newcastle, took its management 30 minutes to stop and a further 16 hours to notify state authorities.

It took two more days before NSW Minister for the Environment, Robyn Parker advised the NSW Parliament, which is when the residents living near the chemical plant first knew of the crisis. Parker ordered a review of the current obligations of industry to immediately notify authorities of pollution incidents that threaten to cause harm.

One week on, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell spoke for many when he criticized Orica's delay in notifying authorities (let alone residents) of a leak of a known carcinogen. The delay was very poor form even if wasn't illegal.

But Orica's unhurried behaviour wouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the firm. Heck, Orica takes health and safety matters so seriously that its own web site trumpets that "safety" related emails are checked once a week! Yes, once a week!

How reassuring for the residents living downwind from Orica's Kooragang Island plant.

What was missing and remains missing from the mainstream media's coverage of events is that in the future, the good people of Stockton (or their descendants) may test positive for cancer, thanks to this leak.

Nobody should be surprised.

Orica, after all is the successor to Imperial Chemical Industries, a company with less than stellar environmental credentials, which in 1992 made the Friends of the Earth list of factories and chemical plants with the 100 largest permits to pour toxic chemicals down the sewers of England and Wales. Accompanying ICI on that list was BP (the folk best known for the multi-billion dollar Gulf of Mexico's Deepwater Horizon disaster). Unsurprisingly, Orica's current Chief Executive, Graeme Liebelt, was formerly head of marketing for Philip Morris, one of Big Tobacco's "big three" purveyors of emphysema.

Stockton's residents and their health care providers must be courageous in taking their parliamentarians and Orica's management to task as they search to understand what happened, why it happened and what health and economic ramifications are in store for them.

There are several matters residents must prioritise. Here is a shortlist in no particular order.

Orica promises that everything that must be cleaned up will be cleaned up. It has even set itself deadlines, but is Orica being directed and supervised by a state agency, or is it for Orica to assess and address its own potentially hazardous activity? Also on the matter of "addressing", how will Orica tackle sliding property values in the area - no doubt factored in by future homebuyers after the leak was widely publicized.

Was the leak on 8^th August the first leak of hexavalent chromium at the plant? Or the first widely reported leak? And what are the health implications given hexavalent chromium is recognized as a human carcinogen when it is inhaled? Chronic inhalation has been shown to increase risk of lung cancer and may also damage the small capillaries in kidneys and intestines.

According to the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) other adverse health effects associated with exposure include skin irritation or ulceration, allergic contact dermatitis, occupational asthma, nasal irritation and ulceration, perforated nasal septa, rhinitis, nosebleed, respiratory irritation, nasal cancer, sinus cancer, eye irritation and damage, perforated eardrums, kidney damage, liver damage, pulmonary congestion and oedema, epigastric pain, and erosion and discolouration of teeth.

Was the drinking water supply contaminated given the plant is located close to Hunter Water treatment facilities and catchment areas? To answer this properly we need to know how much hexavalent chromium was released on 8^th August and how much has been released in the past but not brought to the attention of residents.

As luck would have it, the health effects of hexavalent chromium in drinking water have become a major issue in the United States. In 2010, the United States Environmental Working Group (EWG) tested tap water in 35 U.S. cities and found hexavalent chromium in 31 of them (89 percent). Water samples in 25 of those cities contained hexavalent chromium at concentrations higher than the "safe maximum" (0.06 parts per billion) proposed by California regulators, but far below the safety standard of 100 ppb for all types of chromium combined that was established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Note that hexavalent chromium is but one type of chromium.

To be clear, the EPA was not declaring drinking water with hexavalent chromium "safe" for human consumption. Rather, it underscored the lack of certain knowledge and clear guidelines concerning the level at which hexavalent chromium in drinking water becomes a public health hazard.

In Australia the guidelines call for concentrations of no more than 50 ppb.

We don't know whether Orica or Hunter Water has ever breached those guidelines. Sadly what we do know is how little we know.

There is no dispute that hexavalent chromium is toxic. Its toxicity refers to its ability to cause harm. Damage from a toxic effect may be visible or only measurable by a test (for say, decreased lung function). The toxicity of a substance depends on three factors: its chemical structure, the extent to which the substance is absorbed by the body, and the body's (principally the liver and kidneys) ability to detoxify the substance and eliminate it from the body.

When it comes to chemicals, "toxic" and "hazardous" are not the same. "Toxicity" can be thought of as a subset of "hazardous". The toxicity of a substance is the potential of that substance to cause harm, and is only one factor in determining whether a hazard exists. The hazard of a chemical is the practical likelihood that the chemical will cause harm.

Sometimes the effects of toxic substances may appear immediately or soon after exposure or they can take years to appear. Determining the causes of cancer in humans is difficult. There can be a long period (10 to 40 years) between the start of exposure to a carcinogen and the appearance of a cancer.

After exposure, testing for health effects can be very useful. Medical screening of residents and water bodies to detect the risk of harmful exposure must be considered. A community wide medical surveillance program may discover small changes in health before severe damage occurs.

Organised community wide health screening in the Stockton area (and perhaps beyond) emphasising the skin and respiratory tract as well as urine tests would be a good place to start.

If Orica has nothing to hide it would foot this and future monitoring bills as an act of a responsible corporate citizen and would receive immeasurable goodwill in the process. If Orica has acted poorly but not illegally, then state regulations that the O'Farrell government inherited from Premier Kristina Keneally need very close inspection and perhaps redrafting

Finally, are there parallels between Orica and the hexavalent chromium lawsuit made famous by Erin Brockovich?

Yes, there are some. In that lawsuit it was alleged that Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) over the years had contaminated groundwater with hexavalent chromium in the California town of Hinkley, leading to a high number of cancer cases.

PG&E operated a compressor station for natural gas pipelines at Hinkley, and hexavalent chromium was used in cooling towers at the site to prevent corrosion. Wastewater from the cooling towers, containing hexavalent chromium, was discharged into unlined ponds and seeped into the groundwater and thus contaminated the town's drinking water.

Although there was some question in Hinkley as to whether the number of cancer cases was higher than expected in other counties in the state of California, and how much of a danger the hexavalent chromium actually posed, the case was settled in 1996 for $333 million -the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in U.S. history. Ten years later, in 2006 PG&E paid another $315 million to settle additional hexavalent chromium-related claims.

At Orica's Kooragang Island, just like at the PG&E plant in Hinkley, natural gas plays a key role. At Kooragang's ammonia operations, hydrogen is produced from the methane in natural gas. The hydrogen is then combined with nitrogen to produce ammonia. (Orica no doubt uses hexavalent chromium, like other plants use it worldwide, for its excellent anti corrosive properties).

Six months ago in Brisbane, Erin Brokovich, the woman who fought and won the lawsuits against Pacific Gas & Electric was quoted as saying she looks forward to obtaining Australian citizenship after being impressed by our environmental credentials.

Now would be a good a time as any for her to mosey on down to Stockton, NSW and drop off her passport application personally.