Industry and Synergies

Regulatory Governance

Industry in Kwinana operates under strict licence conditions in a highly regulated environment.

Regulatory governance extends across the various types of industries and also across any emissions that they make. For example, safety regulations are very specific and focused to different extents between those industries that are classified as either ‘Dangerous Goods Facilities’ or ‘Major Hazard Facilities’. Dangerous goods (chemicals, fuels etc) stored for use in excess of specified maximum volumes result in an industry falling under the Dangerous Goods regulations. Industries with processes that present major safety risks to people or the environment, are classified as Major Hazard facilities, and are required to produce, and have approved by the Regulator, highly detailed (and routinely audited) Safety Case reports.

The government departments with substantial responsibility for industry regulation are the Department of Water and Environment Regulation (DWER) and the Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety (DMIRS).

Industry appropriately goes to great lengths to ensure that its environmental and safety practices fall within regulatory limits. Exceedances are required to be promptly reported to the Regulator, and if they occur, investigations and reports are triggered, and in some instances, penalties may be applied.

The extent to which industry is regulated is often not that well understood. In the heavy industrial context, regulatory governance extends to emissions to the environment, which includes to the air, water and to the ground. Emissions to the air include stack gasses, noise and dust, and can even include light emissions.

Heavy industry cannot exist without having emissions of some sort, and many of these emissions are not able to be contained to the site from which it was generated. Think about noise and stack emissions for example. This is the nature of heavy industry, and why it is of critical importance that a heavy industrial area such as the WTC is surrounded by a well-protected buffer zone.

The exchanges between industries (industrial symbiosis) can reduce emissions by turning them into a usable product or process input.

• Bunds
• Air
• Water
• Dust noise
• Safety – DG, MHF
• Buffer
• Separation distances

NEPM: National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure