It's taken more than two decades, but Stockton residents are finally breathing easier.
Community, industry and government representatives gathered at Orica's Kooragang Island manufacturing plant on Thursday to celebrate the completion of a $46 million pollution control upgrade that will slash ammonium nitrate emissions by 95 per cent.
From the community's perspective, much of the credit goes to long-time campaigner and Stockton resident Keith Craig who began calling out the chemical giant's impact on the health of nearby residents in the early 2000s.
As time went on the Newcastle Community Consultative Committee on the Environment joined the push for cleaner air.
In 2018 the Environment Protection Authority directed Orica to investigate how it could reduce ammonium nitrate emissions to acceptable levels.
"We're very pleased to see that the project's been completed," Stockton Community Group co-president Lindy Nisbitt, who spoke at the ceremony on behalf of Mr Craig said.
"It has really been a long journey to reach this point. Thanks to Keith Craig for representing our community over the years but also the broader that Newcastle community."
The emissions reduction project involved retro-fitting the prill tower with an irrigated fibre-bed scrubber to capture particles of ammonium nitrate produced during the manufacturing process.
The new, best practice abatement technology reduces ammonium nitrate particulate emissions, including fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less, by approximately 95 per cent.
The captured emissions are then recirculated in the manufacturing process to produce critical products for the resources and medical industries across Australia.
Orica President Australia Pacific and Sustainability German Morales said the project was an example of the company's commitment to continuous improvement and key to ensuring the sustainability of the Kooragang Island site.
"We understand and share the community's desire for better air quality in general, and we are proud to play a role in achieving this," he said.
"From start to finish, we have worked closely with the NSW Environment Protection Authority to ensure the project meets regulatory expectations and delivers optimal outcomes for the community and the environment."
Designing, fabricating and installing the scrubber was a multi-year, large-scale and highly complex engineering project The construction phase alone took more than 18 months or 115,000 work hours to complete.
About 50 extra jobs were created during the build, which was in addition to the regular 200 plus workforce and the already significant contribution the site makes to the local economy.
"Retro-fitting the scrubber to an existing and operating prill tower which stands at around 52 metres high has been technically challenging," Mr Morales said.
"Completing this project is a great achievement for the site and a real testament to the expertise of our people."
EPA director of operations David Gathercole said the agency had worked with the company to make the pollution control upgrades a reality.
"These changes are a clear example of us collaborating with industry as we move towards cleaner environmentally sustainable practices and the broader transition to net zero," he said.
"As a regulator we want to challenge our licensess to innovate and look for opportunities to lessen their impact on the environment and the community."
In recent years, Orica Kooragang Island has completed a number of important projects aimed at improving the site's environmental performance and contributing to its long-term reliability and sustainability including:
- installing abatement technology on the three nitric acid plants to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 50 per cent
- switching to recycled water, an initiative that saves the Hunter region up to 2.6 billion litres of drinking water a year
- completing a comprehensive program of works to improve the way ammonia is managed, including the installation of three ammonia flaring systems.
Orica is also partnering with clean technology developer MCi Carbon to build a world-first carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) plant 'Myrtle' at the Kooragang Island site.
