KEY POINTS:
The devastating fire at Icepak's Tamahere coolstores has exposed shortcomings in the system of certifying the safety of plants which use dangerous gases.
Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) was unaware the Tamahere plant had twice the amount of highly flammable propane LPG on site without having had the
required safety inspections.
The firemen who attended an emergency alarm on Saturday April 5 did not know propane was on site. Nor did the Waikato District Council.
Firefighter Derek Lovell was killed and seven colleagues injured when the plant suddenly erupted into a fireball.
Who knew what and when are part of the various investigations under way, as is whether Icepak fulfilled its obligations when it changed from non-flammable freon gas as its refrigerant to propane.
Also under scrutiny is New Zealand's regime for ensuring the safe use of flammable gases.
Erma administers the Hazardous Goods and New Organisms (HSNO) Act 1996 which took over from the Dangerous Goods Act.
Under the old legislation, territorial authorities had a dangerous goods inspector tasked with inspecting such sites. Ensuring sites are compliant now falls to Erma but there are doubts about whether it is sufficiently proactive. There is also criticism that the gas regime with its various laws and regulations has become too convoluted, causing some sites to fall between the cracks.
The Fire Service yesterday admitted it still does not know what coolstores throughout the country are using flammable gases such as propane as a refrigerant.
The Tamahere disaster prompted the Fire Service and Department of Labour to begin a survey of such plants.
The Fire Service often have risk assessment plans for buildings assessed as high risk. The plans have five categories, from risk to people to whether a building has a high fire loading, rated on the presence of hazardous substances such as gas and chemicals and the availability of water.
Each category is rated 1 (low risk) to 5 (high) giving the premises a potential maximum risk rating of 25.
After the Icepak disaster, Waikato fire chief Roy Breeze estimated the Icepak Tamahere plant rating wouldn't be less than 20.
Fire Service media manager Scott Sargentina said whether a risk assessment plan existed for the coolstore was part of the operational review - an investigation was under way and no comment would be made on related matters until those were complete.
The Herald understands the firemen were not privy to any risk assessment plan when they attended the alarm.
Icepak director Wayne Grattan told the Herald the safety regime was confusing and the company had thought it had complied, but now realised it didn't have a location test certificate required under HSNO legislation, which is to certify plants with more than 100kg of flammable gas. The Tamahere plant had about 200kg of propane. Test certifiers self-employed but approved by Erma check such things as separation distances of buildings, segregation and other storage requirements, and possible sources of ignition.
It is the responsibility of the company to find out whether they require test certificates.
Garry Cruickshank, head of building services at Unitec New Zealand's Applied Technology Institute says the complexity of regulations and the spread of responsibility is ripe for confusion and disaster.
HSNO applies when volumes of gas exceed 100kg, otherwise it is the Gas Act. But where the responsibility lies for checking depends on whether it goes through pipes (gasfitters) or is held in cylinders, and there is also confusion over the term "uses".
It has always been taken to mean "consumes or burns" gas, in which case a refrigerant would not count, says Cruickshank.
However, if a more general interpretation of "use" (to make use of) was adopted then it is probable that any cooling unit which used LPG as a refrigerant would be considered a gas appliance under the Gas Act.
Erma's general manager, hazardous substances, Andrea Eng, said whether the system was complicated depended on who you spoke to.
People using LPG could see requirements on its website but she acknowledged they would need assistance.
"We don't expect people to be able to navigate that through for themselves which is why we certify people who have that knowledge [Test Certifiers] to do that for you."
The Herald asked Erma: what did it do to ensure plants - which may have dangerous substances - had the necessary checks, whether Erma instigated spot checks, whether it could give a guarantee that coolstores other than Icepak's were compliant and what the penalties were for failing to comply.
An Erma spokesman didn't immediately know but later replied: "The questions are all enforcement related and Erma is not an enforcement agency under the HSNO Act. The relevant enforcement agency is the Department of Labour [DoL]."
The department was unable to provide answers in time for this article.
Act MP Rodney Hide has asked Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker to initiate a ministerial inquiry.
Hide wrote to the minister after being contacted by a neighbour of the Tamahere site, Leo Koppens, who the MP says raises serious questions about the disaster.
These include how the Waikato District Council permitted the plant to be developed in an area not zoned industrial and without fire fighting provisions.
Hide says he understands that the plant did not comply with a building code clause dealing with spread of fire when it was allowed to double the size of the plant in 2003.
The clause requires firewalls between the site and neighbouring properties. Firewalls have been required in coolstores recently built in other districts, namely Western Bay of Plenty.
Why parts of the site were permitted to be unfenced and have no provision for containment of melted product (melted cheese flowed down a stream into a gully more than 100 metres away, and settlement ponds were hastily dug after the fire), are among other planning concerns raised.
A council spokeswoman said it had decided not to comment on any aspect that could be related to the fire pending completion of various investigations. It has told the Tamahere community that the public would be consulted about the future of the Icepak site.
Mr Koppens also questions the involvement of the Fire Service at the time of one of Icepak's expansion applications. He says a fire safety officer told him the service had no concerns.
Asked about the proximity of the school, Koppens says the officer said, "that is not our problem".
Grattan says the company was not required to provide a fire safety plan when it was given permission to expand but installed the required smoke or heat detectors.
Though there was no requirement to have water on site for firefighting purposes it stored 75,000 litres in three water tanks.
"By the time the Fire Service started the firefighting operation two of those tanks had melted," Grattan said. "I think the first water accessed was from the school swimming pool."
It was too early to say whether the company would rebuild.
