return fire Otway Fire Operations Plan for 2009-2012 is released alcoa anglesea 2009 environment report october ANGLESEA ENVIRONMENT REPORT OCTOBER 2009 air Air Monitoring Stack Monitors Average Maximum Opacity g/m3 10-minute average 0.043 0.144 Stack SO2 kg/min 1-hour average Licence limit 100kg/min 71.03 80.52 SO2 1 hour ppb Average Maximum Community Centre 1 35 Primary School 1 119 Mt Ingoldsby 2 177 Scout Camp 3 119 Camp Wilkin 1 94 Camp Road 1 113 Ambient Monitors Ambient Monitors SO2 Maximum 1 hour averages (ppb) Date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Community Centre 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 35 0 0 0 0 0 7 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 29 1 Primary School 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 9 119 0 0 0 0 0 11 4 0 Mt Ingoldsby 1 1 2 2 0 - - - 2 1 - - 0 1 2 0 8 2 0 2 Scout Camp 0 0 1 2 33 0 0 0 0 2 5 119 83 4 103 80 1 9 1 65 1 Camp Wilkin 1 0 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 94 23 27 0 0 1 2 1 49 1 Camp Road 1 0 1 2 1 1 - 0 1 2 2 11 1 1 0 EPA Air Quality Objective 200 Alcoa Local Standard 170 - 0 64 113 1 0 0 0 4 0 1 3 3 0 1 4 2 4 177 2 0 0 2 0 0 4 1 2 5 11 0 0 0 2 0 1 5 0 0 40 0 20 110 1 1 0 1 0 0 5 0 2 2 0 0 13 0 1 ANGLESEA ENVIRONMENT REPORT OCTOBER 2009 water Water Storage Barwon Water storage levels for the Geelong system at 35% capacity. Stage 4 restrictions apply with a Daylight Savings exemption to permit limited residential garden watering. Water Discharge ML October Total Ashponds (SP1) 158 1310 Mine (SP4) 0 0 Water Monitoring SP1 SP4 SP3 19/10/2009 Ashpond Mine Final EPA limit Lab Result EPA limit Lab Result EPA limit Lab Result pH 4-10 7.6 3-9 no 5-9 7.1 Susp. Solids 100 <4 100 discharge 30 <4 Colour 50 4 50 at 50 5 Aluminium 10 0.23 10 time 5.5 0.21 Iron 10 0.13 20 of 4.0 0.029 Zinc 0.4 0.019 2.0 sampling 0.30 0.010 WATER WATER USAGE PER MONTH (ML) Date JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG Town Water 2.5 1.0 1.5 1.5 2.9 1.6 0.6 1.1 1.4 0.7 14.8 Bore Water 288 270 281 237 76 233 231 232 224 239 2311 Mine Water 46 53 54 65 27 66 79 59 75 98 622 SEPT OCT NOV DEC TOTAL ANGLESEA ENVIRONMENT REPORT OCTOBER 2009 Prescribed burning While every effort is made to prevent fires from starting, Victoria will always experience bushfires from either natural or human causes. These bushfires can threaten human life, property, assets and, at times, the environment. One way of protecting assets and also limiting the spread and severity of bushfires is by strategically reducing the ‘fuel’ in our parks and forests. Fuel reduction burns are fires of low intensity used to remove the fine, more flammable fuel. By doing this, a bushfire that either burns into a fuel reduced area, or starts in one will have a lower flame height, reduced intensity and will spread at a slower rate, making fire fighting easier. The term ‘prescribed burning’ refers to the use of fire to achieve planned burn land and resource management objectives: > fuel management: protecting life and property from uncontrolled wildfire through development and implementation of strategies for fire prevention and suppression; > flora and fauna management: active use of controlled fire to alter habitat structure and plant and animal community composition to achieve biodiversity conservation outcomes. The Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria have just released the Otway Fire Operations Plan for 2009/10 to 2011/12. The Anglesea Heath Consultative Committee, of which Alcoa Anglesea is a member, provided comments on the draft plan, and some of these comments were incorporated into the final version. The plan nominates four burns for the Anglesea area in 2009/10. These include: > Anglesea ovals (41 ha) > Gum Flats Road (735 ha) > Messmate Track (239 ha) > Pipeline Track (75 ha) Conducting prescribed burns is not without risk. However, the risks associated with fuel reduction burning under controlled conditions are far outweighed by the increased risk of bushfire if no fuel reduction has occurred. The Otway Fire Operations Plan can be viewed at www.dse.vic.gov.au. Within the community there exists a range of views regarding the role of fire. These range from the belief that there should be no interference to natural fire patterns through to the belief that fire should be used freely as a management tool because it is a natural part of the forest ecology. Regardless of viewpoint, fire was, is and will remain part of ecological Australia. PLANT OF THE ANGLESEA HEATH COMMON FLAT PEA (Platylobium obtusangulum) Platylobium....from the Greek, platy, broad and flat, and lob, lobes referring to the broad, flat lobe shaped seed pods obtusangulum... from Greek, obtusus, meaning blunt, dull or obtuse and angulum, crooked or angular, referring to the shape of the leaves. Size: 0.6 - 1m H x 1m W Form: wiry, upright or scrambling shrub Habitat: Dry and valley sclerophyll forests, sclerophyll and redgum woodlands, tea-tree heath and grassy low open forest. Foliage: leaves are triangular or arrow shaped to 30 mm long with 1 - 3 sharp points Flowers: yellow and red pea flowers on short stalks September - December PLATYLOBIUM OBTUSANGULUM ANGLESEA ENVIRONMENT REPORT OCTOBER 2009 LAND RAINFALL (mm) Month JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG 2009 Rainfall 5.0 5.8 33.4 63.8 47.2 43.8 1968-2008 Average 43.9 42.5 40.4 51.6 60.2 59.5 62.6 79.2 SEPT OCT NOV DEC TOTAL 91.6 61.0 49.4 480.2 65.2 67.0 69.4 562.3 WATER TOWN WATER USE (ML) FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP Process 23.9 15.5 1 2 . 4 2.5 0.8 1.2 1.3 2.3 1.5 0.5 0.7 1.1 0.5 Amenity 11.6 1.5 2.4 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.6 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.3 0.2 2000 2008 2009 JAN 0.0 OCT NOV DEC AIR GREENHOUSE GAS (GHG) TOTAL (Mt) & GHG EMISSION EFFICENCY (t/MWh) GHG Mt GHG t/MWh 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 1.23 1.27 1.50 1.45 1.47 1.31 1.49 1.40 1.42 1.32 1.24 1.19 1.21 1.21 1.20 1.21 1.20 1.18 1.20 1.21 ANGLESEA ENVIRONMENT REPORT OCTOBER 2009 environmental improvement Environmental Management Targets October 2009 Total Forecast 2009 Target Reportable Environmental Incidents 0 1 1 0 Env Near Miss vs Env Incident Run Rate (ratio) 4 2.1 2.1 2.5 Monthly EHS ASAT Audit Completion (%) 100 93 93 90 Air Emission Targets October 2009 Total Forecast 2009 Target Ambient SO2 (no. readings > 200ppb) 0 2 2 0 Stack SO2 (no. hrs > 100kg/min) 0 0 0 0 SO2 Load Reductions (lost MWh) 1620 31675 38009 N/A GHG Efficiency (t CO2 e/MWh) 1.16 1.21 1.21 1.20 Opacity (10 min av > 0.25g/m normal operation) 0 0 0 0 Water Targets October 2009 Total Forecast 2009 Target Town Water (ML) 0.7 14.9 17.9 14.2 Bore Water (ML) 239 2311 2773 4000 Waste Targets October 2009 Total Forecast 2009 Target Waste to Landfill (t) 0.0 11.64 14.0 8.0 Solid Prescribed Waste to Landfill (t) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 3 Mine Rehabilitation Targets 2009 Total 2009 Target 2009 Area to Clear (ha) 0.245 0.0 2009 Area to Rehabilitate (ha) 0.658 0.0 OUR ENVIRONMENT AND OUR EMPLOYEE Hi Lisa, I understand you are the Chairperson of the Anglesea Heath Consultative Committee. What was you role in regard to the Otway Fire Operations Plan? I attended the draft Fire Operations Plan community consultation meeting to hear how the plan would be implemented, and I also co-ordinated the response to DSE on behalf of the Anglesea Heath Consultative Committee. We had some changes that we wanted to make to the plan. DSE listened to our reasoning for these changes, and some were included in the plan. Tell me a little about the Anglesea Heath Consultative Committee. The committee is made up of representatives from Alcoa, Parks Victoria, ANGAIR, Deakin University, and Surf Coast Shire. The committee works to conserve the Anglesea Heath and deals with any issues that arise which affect the Heath. ...LISA MILLS