Australia's top transport industry trainer says the freight business is ill-equipped to respond to disasters, even though a "moving pipeline of tankers" from Sydney are replacing storage depots in country towns and cities like Canberra.
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Transport Industry Skills Centre chief executive Ken Brennan said everything from B-double trucks to super transporters were hauling loads from 10,000 litres to 65,000 litres day and night across Australia. But many of the operators were not training their staff how to respond to a roll-over, even though more were happening.
"We want to promote [our training], because unfortunately industry goes around like the ostrich with their head in the sand and they respond when incidents like this happen," Mr Brennan said.
"Then they send people off and do their training and put in emergency training in their organisations. But there are large companies who are transporting petrol chemicals and dangerous goods all around Australia who don't have either emergency planning within their organisation or don't have emergency incident responders in the event these petrol tankers are actually involved in a serious incident, like a roll-over."
Mr Brennan wants more transport companies to attend a training exercise for emergency services crews at the skills centre on Sutton Road, near Queanbeyan, on January 22 and 23. Fire and Rescue NSW Superintendent Kim Reeson is overseeing the production of a video of the training.
Superintendent Reeson says the video, which will show emergency workers safely decanting fuel from a rolled tanker, will be distributed throughout NSW at future training exercises.
"When we are dealing with such a dangerous scenario we need to make sure we do it in the best possible way, and the way they teach it down there [at the skills centre] is recognised as being a benchmark in best practice."
The first priority after a roll-over is protection of life. Other emergencies can arise like protecting water catchments from spills, and interruption to infrastructure.
"I'm not sure if this is the right statistic, but I've been told if the Hume Highway is closed you can lose up to $1 million worth of business every hour," Superintendent Reeson said.
Rescue crews also had to be alert for leakages into water courses, he said.
At the forefront of oil industry training is Brian O'Connor, who has worked in fuel depots in Yass and Canberra for 60 years.
Petrol and diesel were no longer stored at depots, but in road tankers, which kept up a constant stream of supply, Mr O'Connor said.
"It is the moving pipeline, that's what they call tankers," he said. "Once it was all stored in big tanks - it no longer is. All the country towns had oil depots. In Yass, when I was young there were 10, now there are none."
Four major depots in Fyshwick had either closed or were being closed or downgraded, he said.
Mr O'Connor established Canberra and Regions Oil Emergency Response Group in 1989, after a road tanker roll-over on the Federal Highway, which spilt 30,000 litres. All the control and clean-up and recovery equipment had to be brought from Sydney. The response group has also developed dangerous goods emergency response training.
A Caltex spokesman said its Fyshwick depot stopped supplying commercial customers in mid-2014. The depot does not store any fuel.
"Caltex supplies all grades of petrol and diesel directly to ACT service stations via trucks from its nearest terminal in Sydney. In many cases, the trucks will unload fuel at multiple service stations to top up supplies at each site," the spokesman said.
