History of the Site
This report will focus on the contamination of the land and groundwater at the Orica Botany site. It will also highlight the mercury emissions emanating from the Orica Botany site. It will briefly document the history of Orica Limited, an Australian multinational organization and will also document the history of the site and the major air, land and groundwater pollution issues emanating from the site. It will describe the various methods that are being used to curb air and groundwater pollution by Orica Limited. It will also highlights the remediation measures that have been implemented by Orica Limited.
History of the Site: Orica Limited is an Australian multinational organization that supplies explosives and equipments for blasting to the mining, quarrying, oil and gas industry. They also provide sodium cyanide to extract gold and provides support and services in mining and tunneling. Orica Limited was founded in 1874 and the company provides its services to customers across more than hundred countries. It has eleven thousand five hundred employees in its workforce and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. The headquarters of Orica Limited is in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Orica’s Botany Industrial Park, situated in the Sydney suburb of Banksmeadow was formerly owned by ICI, a British company dealing with chemicals before it became independent in February 1998 (Altalyan et al. 2016).
Land and Air Pollution Issues: Historical operations at the Botany Industrial Park have led to soil and groundwater contamination on the site as well as the adjoining areas. This unfortunate event started from as early as 1940s and carried on until the late 1980s. The harmful carcinogenic chemicals that were mixed with the groundwater formed a toxic layer and spread across two square kilometers below the houses of nearly one thousand people. This toxic layer of chemicals is now advancing towards Botany Bay. If unchecked, this toxic layer of chemicals will harm marine life and also harm humans and animals who come in contact with the harmful toxic water in Botany Bay. In addition to soil and groundwater contamination, mercury emissions also emanate from the Orica Botany site.
According to a report published by Greenpeace in 2004, there is a huge amount of hexachlorobenzene in the site where Orica is situated and a large amount of ethylene dichloride that seeped into the ground for decades and contaminated the groundwater that is below the Orica site. At present, Chlorine, Polyethylene, Ethylene glycol, Low density polyethylene, ethylene and water that is not mineralized are manufactured at the Orica site (Altalyan et al. 2016).
Land and Air Pollution Issues
Earlier industrial and trade waste was not disposed of properly and no measures were taken to prevent the contamination of land. There was a lack of environmental awareness. Lack of environmental awareness in addition to lack of knowledge led to this catastrophe. From the 1960s to 1991, due to the production of plastic and chemical solvents, a huge amount of hexachlorobenzene was produced. Hexachlorobenzene is an organic pollutant that does not biodegrade. It can affect the skin, nerves, the liver and kidneys and cause cancer. The toxic groundwater at the Orica site further adds to the problem. The sources of contamination include the solvent plant that was used earlier, tanks to store dichloroethane (EDC) tanks that were earlier used to store carbon tetrachloride (CTC), filled areas adjacent to the railway line and old surface drain (Altalyan et al. 2016).
In addition to causing groundwater pollution, The Environmental Protection Authority’s particle characterization study found that Orica Limited is also contributing to rising ammonium nitrate levels in the atmosphere thereby causing air pollution.
Mechanisms for Pollution Control: On 26th of September 2003, the New South Wales Environmental Protection Authority issued a notice to Orica to clean up the contaminated groundwater under Section 91 of the Protection of the Environment Operation Act 1997. Orica was instructed to clean up the groundwater contaminated by the chemicals that emanated from the Botany Industrial Park. The chemicals that contaminated the groundwater include “Chlorinated Methanes, Carbon Tetrachloride, Methylene Chloride, Chloroform, Chloromethane, Chlorinated Ethenes, Tetrachloroethane, Trichloroethane, Dichloroethane, Chloromethane, Chlorinated ethenes, Dichloroethene, Trichloroethene, Vinyl Chloride, Dichlorobenzene, Trichlorobenzene, Tetrachlorobenzene, Pentachlorobenzene, Hexachlorobenzene, Hexachlorobutadiene, Hexachloroethane and Hexachloropropylene” (Montoya 2015). The most toxic of all chemicals that have seeped underground and have contaminated the groundwater is Dichloroethane or EDC. It is primarily used for making plastic and synthetic textile fibers. It may cause disorders in the central nervous system and may affect the stomach, the lungs, the kidney and the liver. It can also lead to cancer. In July 2005, the site of the Botany Industrial Park was declared a Groundwater Exclusion Area by the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources and residents of that area were requested not to use that water under any circumstances. Notices were put up and people were warned not to swim in this area due to the presence of contaminated water. People were also forbade to consume any kind of marine life from this area.
The Environmental Monitoring conducted and Remediation Measures applied: In October 2004, Orica Limited announced that it would spend one hundred and fifty four million Australian dollars to clean up the entire area. One hundred and sixteen Australian dollars would be spent on removing the toxic groundwater and thirty eight million Australian dollars would be spent to process and convert the toxic groundwater, to the standard of drinking water. Orica Limited takes full responsibility of the problem. Orica Limited regrets the fact that the groundwater has been contaminated in the past and promises to clean it up. (Bell et al. 2014). Orica has kept the remediation process. It keeps residents of the area informed on the progress of the clean up drive through a local newspaper and through their web page entitled ‘Orica Botany Groundwater’ Orica Limited often holds press conferences for journalists to report on the remediation plan and its progress. (Selinger and Barrow 2017).
Mechanisms for Pollution Control
An Evaluation of the Techniques and the Processes used: As per the clean up notice issued by Orica Limited, Orica Limited has to carry out a hydraulic purification of toxic groundwater. For that, Orica Limited has started working in order to manufacture a containment barrier. Inside the containment barrier, there are thirty sets of hydraulic pumps that will pump out the toxic groundwater and deposit it to a plant where it will get treated and reused on the site for other purposes. (Bell et al. 2014). For the treatment of the contaminated groundwater, Orica Limited recommended the process of air stripping, and also the use of a thermal oxidizer. (Bell et al. 2014.) Air stripping is an effective method for removing contaminants from water. Recuperative thermal oxidizer helps to destroy the EDC waste through air stripping. Recuperative thermal oxidizer operates at 1000 degree Celsius, and has an extremely high destruction efficiency. The purified groundwater will be reused for other purposes on the site of the Botany Industrial Park. The groundwater treatment plant built on the Botany Industrial Park can purify fifteen million litres of the contaminated ground water per day. The purified groundwater strives to meet the standards and guidelines set by the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council, Marine Guidelines and the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (Bell et al. 2014).
- High temperature incinerators should be developed to treat chlorinated chemical wastes.
- GeoMelt process should be adopted by Orica to destroy waste on site and off site. Orica should remain committed to actively implementing a safe environmentally sound solution (Altalyan et al. 2016).
Conclusion:
Orica Australia is committed to managing air and land pollution issues at the Orica Botany site. They have taken full responsibility of the problem and are totally committed towards obliterating the problem. Stringent measures are being taken to negate the effect of land and ground water pollution at the Orica Botany site. Orica Limited is trying its best to purify the ground water in the Orica site and it is also trying to prevent further groundwater pollution. The Botany Groundwater Cleanup Project was started by Orica Australia to control the groundwater pollution and also prevent the toxic groundwater from entering Botany Bay. This is done by treating the toxic groundwater at a Groundwater Treatment Plant for reuse. Orica Limited seeks the advice of international experts and local regulators in this clean up project. To protect the health of human beings and the environment, Orica Limited regularly monitors the environment. They have adopted a Human Health Risk Assessment to identify the factors that may affect human health and they work towards mitigating those risks. Orica Limited completed the purification of the soil for remediation projects in 2015. Orica Limited has also cleaned the site that was used to manufacture pharmaceuticals and transferred the toxic soils to a storage place north east corner of the site. The main contaminants in the soil include DDT and its degradation products DDD and DDE, total petroleum hydrocarbons, benzene, 1,2-dichloroethane also known as EDC, trichloroethene, chlorobenzene,1,4-dichlorobenzene, hexachlorobenzene,lindane and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Orica Limted has also undertaken a plethora of Community Outreach programs in relation to the Botany Groundwater Cleanup Project.
References:
Altalyan, H.N., Jones, B., Bradd, J., Nghiem, L.D. and Alyazichi, Y.M., 2016. Removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from groundwater by reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 9, pp.9-21.
Bell, J.M., Frater, B., Butterfield, L., Cunningham, S.D., Dodgson, M., Fox, K., Spurling, T. and Webster, E., 2014. Securing Australia’s future: The role of science, research and technology in lifting Australian productivity.
Blount, C., Bennett, R. and Smith, M.L., 2017. Managing sensitive habitats adjacent to the Port Botany expansion. Australasian Coasts & Ports 2017: Working with Nature, p.123.
Chamnanvatchakit, P., Prodpran, T., Benjakul, S. and Prasarpran, S., 2015. Use of Epoxidized Natural Rubber (ENR) for property improvement of gelatin film. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 8(36).
Harrison, P. and Harries, G., Orica Ltd, 1973. Ammonium nitrate-fuel oil composition containing ammonium nitrate prills of different porosity, hardness, and density. U.S. Patent 3,781,180.
Hartcher, P., 2014. The Sweet Spot: How Australia Made Its Own Luck-and Could Now Throw it All Away. Black Inc..
Kearney, R. and Farebrother, G., 2015. The comparative performance of the management of the individual threats to marine environments and fisheries resources. FRDC Project, (2013/029).
Lakshmanan, S. and Murugesan, T., 2014. The chlor-alkali process: work in progress. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 16(2), pp.225-234.
Maier, V., NEW ZEALAND Ltd and Orica Ltd, 1973. Purification of tetramisole. U.S. Patent 3,746,718.
MOGHADDASI, M., HALVANI, G.H. and BAFGHI, M.S., 2017. The Use of accident indicators for risk assessment monitoring in design and construction phase of pelletizing project, 2016-2017. International Journal of Occupational Hygiene, 9(3), pp.171-178.
Montoya, D., 2015. Pollution in Sydney Harbour: sewage, toxic chemicals and microplastics. NSW Parliamentary Research Service.
Rayu, S., 2016. The interactions between xenobiotics and soil microbial communities.
Ren, Z. and Graham, N., 2015. Treatment of humic acid in drinking water by combining potassium manganate (Mn (Vi)), ferrous sulfate, and magnetic ion exchange. Environmental Engineering Science, 32(3), pp.175-178.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
