Following chemical disasters in Melbourne's inner-west such as the 1985 Butlers Transport fire, the 1989 United Transport fire, the 1990 Dynon Road chemical spill and the 1991 Coode Island fire, the Hazardous Materials Action Group (HAZMAG) is campaigning for federal and state community right-to-know legislation. Paul Adams and Matt Ruhel from HAZMAG put the arguments.
The Australian Chemical Industry Council (ACIC), which claims to represent the chemical industry in Australia, believes its self-regulatory Responsibility Care Program can provide sufficient information to satisfy community interests. But studies of similar programs in the USA have found that they are not as effective as the industry claims.
One study there found:
- 42% of companies were uncontactable even after repeated attempts;
- at 27% of the facilities surveyed, company representatives either couldn't or wouldn't answer any questions.
In other words, 69% showed no interest in answering community questions despite the fact that all were members of the US Chemical Manufacturers' Association, a body set up to guide industry self-regulation and supposedly promote community interest.
A study in Australia also found the chemical industry unwilling to respond directly to community requests for information. Only eight out of 30 companies responded to the survey. Fifteen of the companies belonged to the ACIC, and seven of these didn't respond. Those that did respond provided limited detail.
Nineteen out of 32 hazardous chemical incidents in the western suburbs in 1991 involved companies belonging to ACIC.
Corporate secrecy is the pretext most often cited for refusing to provide information — a claim that, by definition, companies have to establish only to their own satisfaction.
Internationally, community right-to-know legislation usually has three components:
- compulsory reporting of toxic chemical releases, with information then made publicly available through means such as data bases and telephone hot lines;
- a requirement for public information about chemicals being used by companies;
- emergency planning and notification, including community participation, to develop a public response mechanism in the event of major spills and hazards.
Since 1987, the first full year of operation of the US Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, official toxic release inventory (TRI) data show releases of toxic chemicals down by 20%. In California, chemical companies have completely stopped emitting six toxic chemicals, and emissions are down for two-thirds of all chemicals for which data are available.
On the eve of the first national release of TRI data in 1987, Monsanto Corporation went public with a pre-emptive pledge of a 90% reduction of its toxic emissions to air by 1992.
Better public understanding of the chemical industry's impact on health and the environment has encouraged broader public participation. As a result of the US legislation, communities are producing scores of reports identifying toxic pollution problems and advocating solutions.
Communities are also able to negotiate directly with companies for changes to industrial practices and compel the enforcement of regulations. They are in a stronger position to sue to bolster compliance and the establishment of pollution prevention plans, and to advocate state laws to reduce toxic use.
These processes in turn provide legislators with information to help them make policy decisions, and federal and state governments can use the legislation to obtain information. Because right-to-know legislation provides the same information to government and the public, regulators have had to accommodate public involvement in decision making.
Unions have used right-to-know laws to force phasing out of certain chemicals, to develop cleaner production processes and to eradicate unsafe workplace practices.
Australia has no community right-to-know legislation and only limited worker right-to-know provisions. The March 1992 final report of the independent Coode Island Review Panel recommended that "the government agree in principle to a legislated Community Right to Know to assist public understanding of hazardous materials and production processes".
So far, no party, state or federal, has done anything about this. However, independent Senator Janet Powell is drafting a private
member's bill, the Chemicals (Public Right to Know) Bill, to be introduced later this year. For more information contact HAZMAG, PO Box 27, Yarraville 3013. Ph: (03) 689 3593.