Obituary - Ray Wilson

9.APEA 2009 Ricoh Arena Coventry

Update on the annual APEA

Conference, Exhibition and Awards

Dinner all progressing well with numerous speakers so far confirmed of which the subject matter will be the

Electrification of vehicles, The Bio

Fuels Directives, BP & Ethanol,

Above Ground Tanks-Friend and foe and the Environment Agency’s new

Groundwater Policy. Some controversial subjects which makes attending essential.

10.SELOCOG Tank Failure Survey 2008

Brian advised that this Regulator’s regional Group were conducting a

Tank Failure Survey that so far with 21 Local Authorities responding out of 31 has seen 10 tank failures throughout 2008 in the area. The reason for this is to establish a true picture of tank failures in the area.

11.Taxi Office Explosion -

Immingham

This occurred on 24 December 2007 and caused the local MP to raise it in the House of Commons which has seen an acceptance that domestic storage of petrol needs to be reviewed where two women lost their lives in this incident.

Anton Martiniussen Branch Secretary

Ireland

The Irish Branch held its 2009 AGM on 26th March in Ashbourne Co. Meath. The turnout was reasonable at 31 members and one guest speaker. There was a good cross section of attendees from consultants, local authorities, petroleum contractors/suppliers and oil companies which helped in input from all interested parties in the discussions on the proposed new Dangerous Substances Regulations which is covered later in this piece.

The first item on agenda was the election of the officers and committee for the coming year as follows:

Chairman Tom Daly

Vice Chariman Kevin Wright

Secretary Julian Rafter Committee Members: Maureen Briggs Phil Bonny Alan Pollock Clive Kyle Lorraine Kelly Michael O’Kane

The second item on the agenda was a presentation by Kevin Cleary of WYG Environmental on “Greening your Forecourt”. This presentation gave a valuable insight into the opportunity for forecourts to become more environmentally aware and increase profit.

The third item on the agenda was a presentation on “Risk Assessment in Retail Petroleum” given by Geoff Oldham of SureSite. This proved to be a very interesting presentation particularly with the proposed changes in Irish legislation and the strong emphasis on risk assessment and risk management proposed in the Ove Arup report and generated many questions from the floor.

After lunch there was a presentation on “Marketing Services in a Recession” given by Eamon Leahy (Chartered Accountant). Given the current economic outlook, this presentation gave some very valuable advice to all present.

Our last item and definitely the most important item on the day was an update from our Chairman Tom Daly on the progress and current status of the review of the Dangerous Substances Legislation being carried out by the Department of Trade, Enterprise and Employment.

At the time of our meeting the process was at the public consultation stage and we utilised the meeting to discuss, in detail, the 30 recommendations that have been made by the consultants in their report. This generated quite a lively debate, chaired by Tom, with very good participation from all at the meeting.

In general most of the changes/recommendations were welcomed. In particular we welcomed the proposal to adopt the APEA “Blue Book” as the standard in the future and to remove the prescriptive items out of the new legislation and instead refer in the legislation to Approved Codes of Practice which will ensure that advances in technology can be brought in more easily and quickly through their incorporation into the ACOPs. However it was agreed that if this was being adopted as the standard in ROI it is important for Ireland to be represented for the forthcoming revision of the “Blue Book”, which will be our “bible” going forward. There will be a lot of work in the coming 12 to 18 months on agreeing the relevant ACOPs, many of which no doubt we will adopt from the IP/APEA and other relevant institutions.

We understand that the Department will be meeting with the Government Minister in charge to discuss the public consultation responses in late April/May and it is our hope to meet again with the Department in May/June to progress the next stage. We also understand that the Department are seeking to progress this as an inclusive process with the interested parties involved to ensure that relevant experience and expertise is available to aid the process.

Anybody interested in gaining further information can contact either Tom Daly or Julian Rafter or view the details on the Department’s website www.entemp.ie//employment/chemical spolicy/index.htm#Latest

A copy of our response to the Department on the recommendations is included below for those interested.

2008/09 has been a particularly busy year for the Irish Branch given the ongoing review of the legislation. Apart from the AGM we have held a number of council meeting’s during the year and also met with the consultants ARUP to put forward our recommendations on the ne legislation. The year ahead would appear to be an interesting one with the ongoing legislation review and we would hope to be in a position to provide input in to the process giving plenty of scope for further expansion of the Irish branch.

Julian Rafter Branch Secretary

Scotland

14 April 2009. Forth Valley College, Kerse Road, Stirling FK7 7QA

Gareth Bourhill, the Chair of the Branch, opened the meeting by welcoming all to the College facility as well as wishing the attendees a happy Easter. He thanked the Secretary for arranging the Meeting which would take the format of presentations on different subjects, followed by our AGM in the later afternoon.

The first speaker was Edward Wheeler, Managing Director of Eurotank Environmental Ltd. As well as a history of how the Company has developed over the last few years, Edward included information on how working on Petroleum Forecourts has had to change over the last few years due to the two major changes that have been seen namely the introduction of Stage II Vapour Recovery, and the increased use of new fuels and Biofuels in particular. He did this by way of very