Dust Doesn't Take the Weekend Off

After work recommenced on the Splitters Creek Evaporative Facility on 29 October, 2014, and the shambles of regulatory inattention occurred that we highlighted here and here, things didn’t get any better.

Work on this facility – a facility that is apparently extremely urgently required to deal with excess groundwater – ceased for the weekend on Thursday, 30 October, after just two days destruction construction. The construction workers took the day off at extremely short notice to the residents who received an email that morning advising work would not proceed that day.

But the dust didn’t take the weekend off. Or the wind. Despite a personal inspection by the Mayor and the City's Compliance Officer, no measures were put in place to deal with the dust that would inevitably be generated by stripping topsoil and creating scars on the landscape a couple of hundred metres long and a hundred wide and then leaving them alone to the ravages of the sun and wind. . It’s bigger now.

 Note the single tanker for dust suppression. Another was brought in later. Two tankers.

So the site was left without dust suppression overnight. The following day was warm and dry, but relatively still. The dirt and dust and topsoil dried out and dust blew about a little. Thirteen millimetres of rain fell, forming a crust that dried in the sun. Residents contacted DSDBI to find out what was going to be done about the dust that was sure to follow. An email informing them that the need for water mitigation would be checked the following morning arrived.

On Saturday morning, the Costerfield winds picked up and blew dust across the properties neighbouring Lot 2. It was ridiculous. A thick cloud of ‘naturally occurring health issue’ was allowed to blow about the district in the gusting wind. It was everywhere.

These are the locations of the dust deposition gauges at the Splitters Creek construction site indicated by the SCD01, 02, 03, 04 pink flags. All are confined to the Subject Land as if the dust will not leave the site.

Angry residents – we have told the authorities about the potential for dust for months – attempted to have something, anything, done. Calls to the Mandalay Resources 24/7 number went unanswered. Text messages sent. No reply. Either no reply or no action from Councillors, the Mayor, DSDBI. The CoGB Environmental Health was contacted: It’s the weekend, said the person manning the phones. The water carts are probably having the weekend off.

Dust and wind don’t take the weekend off.

Two residents attended Mandalay’s Brunswick Plant to find out what was happening. A mine worker had indeed been sent to check the dust – at 3pm, after our attempts to call; no one had replied to tell us that anything was being done – and had video-ed and photographed the dust we had complained of. We have asked the regulators and the mine to provide these photos and the video to us. The dust, then, was still there after numerous phone calls and a drive to Lot 2 from the mine.

That would seem be a pretty extensive dust event. And it was not the first of the day. The wind was gusting. Our email from DSDBI assured us that Lot 2 would be checked in the morning. Supposedly it was, and there was no dust at that time. And so it was not seen to be necessary to check again for the rest of the warm, windy day.

The Energy and Resources website advises Costerfield residents to

• Only drink or prepare food with bottled water
• Young children should not drink water with detectable levels of antimony
• Reduce dust inside their homes
• Minimise ingestion of soil, especially important for children playing outdoors

“Low levels of antimony are not dangerous but exposure above the recommended WHO daily intake guidelines over extended periods should be avoided,” Dr Csutoros said.

“All households where testing occurred have been contacted and offered a visit to discuss the results of testing at their properties and the findings of the full report. Advice will be available on how to reduce antimony exposure for households and how to access additional support and information.”

But no one has visited Glen Lea. And no testing has taken place there. And no dust monitoring is in place there. And the dust was everywhere. And we don’t know how much of it we ingested. And the Splitters Creek Facility will take three months to construct over summer.

Can Dr Csutoros kindly attend Costerfield and tell us how we are to avoid exposing ourselves to daily intakes above WHO guidelines under these conditions, please?

As the particulate monitoring presented at the recent ERC meeting confirms, particulate dust is in the Costerfield air...

Surely before the residents of Costerfield minimise their ingestion of soil it should be incumbent on the regulators to ensure that there is a minimum of dust to be ingested.