Explosives and chemical maker Orica says it will fund an environmental investigation into the history of mercury emissions at its former site at Port Botany after health fears from local residents.
A mother-of-two fears that mercury pollution at the site could endanger the health of her children and community and has called for independent off-site tests.
Botany Bay mother Chantal Snell travelled to Melbourne on Thursday to deliver Orica a petition containing nearly 8,500 signatures demanding independent testing of mercury levels at the Port Botany site.
Speaking outside Orica’s annual general meeting, Ms Snell told reporters that she and others wanted independent off-site testing of mercury levels and not just a review of historical data on mercury emissions from the site.
“We are concerned, we are frightened for our health, frightened for our kids’s health and frightened that we may be unwittingly putting them at risk,” Ms Snell said.
“We’re asking Orica to fund independent testing – genuinely independent testing – that’s supported by the community to ensure that there isn’t mercury in our community posing risks to our health.”
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) last week announced that it would review information about historical mercury emissions at the site, following meetings with NSW Health and senior Orica executives.
But Ms Snell said a review of historical data would be “insufficient”.
“We need to know what’s in our community now, not what was potentially in our community then,” she said.
Orica managing director Ian Smith said on Thursday said that Orica had agreed to fund the EPA investigation.
“We’ve agreed that the (NSW) government will lead this, we will fund it, and it’s basically a review of all the data and leading up to a recommendation on the second step,” Mr Smith told reporters.
“I don’t know what that second step will be as a recommendation.
“We’re not precluding anything at this stage.”
Orica also said on Thursday that it was on track to meet its guidance on financial performance despite a drop in its specialty bolts and injectable chemicals business.
“What we’re seeing this year is that we’re slightly ahead of where we thought we would be on explosives,” Mr Smith said.
“The ground support business (specialty bolts and injectable chemicals) is slightly behind.
“Putting the whole business together, we’re in line with where we thought we would be budgetwise, and that budget is guided by what we said with guidance overall for the company.”
Mr Smith said overall demand for explosives worldwide had been holding up better.
The demand for ground support products mostly reflected the state of the North American underground coal market, which was still in a trough.
In November 2012 at the release of its full year results for fiscal 2012, Orica forecast a higher net profit excluding one-off items in its 2012/13 fiscal year.
The company booked a net profit of $402.8 million in the 12 months to September 30, 2012, which included a $247 million writedown on its specialty bolts and chemicals business, Minova.
