Thursday, 20 September 2007 12:52pm
The NSW Land and Environment Court yesterday ordered Sydney chemical company Nalco Australia to contribute $50,000 to an environmental project and pay $10,000 in costs after about 9,000 litres of ethylene glycol escaped into a waterway leading to Botany Bay.
An employee had been ordered to pump the chemical into a storage tank but valve on the tank had not been closed. The company had no training manual or standard operating procedures for unloading bulk liquid chemicals.
Nalco had immediately alerted the NSW environment department after the 2006 spill and coordinated the removal and disposal of 800,000 litres of contaminated water. It pleaded guilty to a breach of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997.