MP claims West End residents suffering

Hedland’s West End residents and business owners are suffering because industry is failing to control its dust emissions, Pilbara MP Brendon Grylls says.

His comments come after the Health Department in February released a health risk assessment into dust exposure in Hedland.

Mr Grylls said a key finding in the report was dust near the town’s industrial port exceeded 24-hour maximum levels on more occasions a year than were allowed under target guidelines set in 2010.

Because this occurred in the West End and not South Hedland or Cooke Point, it indicated industry users at Port Hedland Port generated most of the dust, he said.

However, the report also stated if industry reduced its emissions and met those guidelines, then dust-related hospital admissions could be reduced by two thirds, Mr Grylls said.

“So what (the report’s authors, environmental consultants) Toxikos actually said was if industry met their guidelines, most of the problem actually disappears,” he said.

Mr Grylls’ comments come as a challenge to solutions proposed by Health Department officials.

With the risk assessment report finding long-term exposure to high concentrations of dust could be bad for residents’ health, the department proposed a two-pronged attack.

It suggested limiting dust exposure by capping the West End’s population to give industry and other Hedland land users more time to work on ways to control dust emissions.

This was despite a Health Department spokesman this week agreeing that monitoring showed “dust sources from the Port Hedland Port are mostly to blame for higher dust levels in the area” and that “industry has not met its own guidelines”.

The spokesman said while industry had a role in reducing dust, “these reductions may take time to achieve”, making it important to limit population growth in the meantime.

Port Hedland Industries Council president Cheryl Edwardes said port users had already implemented “best-practice dust management measures” contained in the 2010 Port Hedland Air Quality and Noise Management Plan.

As members of the Port Hedland Dust Management Taskforce, she said industry would also examine the risk assessment report and release recommendations for controlling dust by mid-year.

However, Mr Grylls said the Health Department’s proposals shifted responsibility from industry to the community.

He said concerns over dust had already held up plans for the Spoilbank marina community facility and cast doubt over the health of West End residents and their property investments.

Mr Grylls said local government had already acted to limit health risks posed by dust in the West End by introducing planning conditions for new buildings.

These encouraged developers to build apartments rather than homes with backyards in the West End in a bid to discourage the young and elderly, who are more susceptible to high dust levels, from living in the area.

Rather than target residents, Mr Grylls said he wanted to see industry move “from guidelines (for dust emissions) to actual targets with penalties for not meeting them”.

“You would have thought that off the back of this, that is what would have happened,” he said.

“That is what happens everywhere else and I would be supportive of that.”