| Balance Research | CHEMICALS BY RAIL |
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These materials should travel in rail tank cars if the using plant has a rail siding, and if not, in intermodal tanks by rail to the nearest goods station for transfer to road for a short delivery trip.
If the ship-unloading and storage terminal is located in a sensitive area (as in Melbourne where it is near the city), storage inventories should be minimised by loading entire shipments into rail tanks or intermodal tanks and storing these further away until required.
In 1991, a serious fire at the facility caused a large cloud of fumes to spread over parts of the city and suburbs, leading to a long-running series of enquiries and studies into the future location of this kind of activity.
Balance Research submitted to the first enquiry (Coode Island Review Panel) that in considering relocation of these facilities, provision of rail access should be a requirement. Further, if there was any chance of the terminal staying at Coode Island, the inventory could be reduced by a system of "Integrated Storage and Delivery". This would involve the entire incoming parcel being outloaded into Intermodal tanks and railed to an inland tank park. From there the tanks would be railed to the users as required. The delivery would require road delivery from a railhead to the users.
This would slot into the notion being proposed by Balance Research that rail freight would some day return to the suburban area.
Further representations were made to later panels of inquiry and reviews of Environmental Effects Statements.
In 1998, the Government of Victoria decided that the operation would stay at Coode Island after all, because the only possible locations away from cities were too sensitive in other ways. The plant, already updated after the fire, would be further improved under supervision of the relevant authorities.
The company which owns and operates the facility, Terminals Pty Ltd, cooperated with local Councils to establish a body to consult with the community. This is the Coode Island Community Consultative Committee CICCC. It provides an effective interace between community representatives, the company and the various authorities.
Balance Research has put it to the CICCC that the hazards associated with the terminal could be reduced by using rail instead of road for most of the transport and by storing as much as possible of the more dangerous inventories at an inland tank park.
The CICCC has asked the company to consider using rail in future when and if the railway tracks are restored to Coode Island, and the company has said it will actively pursue this in that event.
The railway tracks to Coode Island never connected to the bulk liquid storage, but served the nearby wharfing operation of P and O Ports. Around 1995 they ceased to use rail and the tracks were removed. The port authority has recently decided that they will be restored to encourage imports and exports to use rail.