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Dust storm 2: a health hazard beyond comparison
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Particulate pollution has soared to levels never seen in Australia in recent hours as the red dust storm intensifies over much of the top three quarters of NSW. By 10.30am this morning the Sydney eastern suburb of Randwick had gone from low pollution readings to 3066 on the Air Quality Index posted by the NSW Department of the Environment. A reading of 200 represents the boundary above which fine particles are declared hazardous to the health of fit and unfit persons alike. In Sydney’s west Bringelly had soared to an AQI reading of 3195, and Kembla Grange near Wollongong was on 2713. But west of the Blue Mountains Bathurst reached 4056 and in the northern tablelands Tamworth went past 2588. Health authorities are uncertain whether these levels of natural dust will prove as dangerous as the industrial or vehicular emissions, pollen counts and bushfire smoke components that normally drive the AQI numbers.
However the NSW ambulance service says it experiencing higher levels of call outs from asthma sufferers requiring hospital attention. People are advised to remain indoors where possible and not engage in physical activity. The dust has insinuated itself into offices and homes over most of the state. You can taste it in your throat as well as smell it, and it is causing eye irritations in many people. The situation is expected to deteriorate until at least early afternoon, with clearer and less windy conditions forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology for this evening. |
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10 Comments
How do these particularate figures compare with the great Melbourne dust storm before Ash Wednesday 1983?
Why no advice to the NSW public to wear dust masks?
“Why no advice to the NSW public to wear dust masks?”
Probably because it would conflict with the advice to stay at home. Thousands of people going out to buy dust masks. If you think it’s going to become a regular occurrence, buying some now might be prudent.
Sandworms sighted off Bondu
Is that a reference to Dune? Or the similar monsters in BeetleJuice?
Actually, Ben as you know I’m just away from the Sydney basin, thank God even on the best of smoggy days. So I think there is alot to your point about the bowl effect in story no.1. I drove through South Windsor at 1 pm and at the line of shops there were only two dusted cars parked, mine (south of Windsor) and one other. So they either hosed them quick smart or missed the dust storm.
I drove further north to Cattai toward Maroota say 40 km north west of Sydney cbd and there was little or no evidence of dust but signs of high wind at destination (dunny with no roof). Which suggests to me local air currents play a role in particulate pollution for good and ill and in Sydney that’s for ill.
The real health costs of this storm will not be apparent for some weeks yet. When I lived in Saudi Arabia the Shamaal, a yearly occurring strong Northerly wind always brought sand storms similar to today’s. A couple of weeks later there would be outbreaks of all sorts of illnesses brought about by bacteria that had been buried in the sand for some time, only to be spread far and wide by the winds. I suspect we will see a similar outbreak of illnesses in the weeks to come.
Very interesting Brian. I have been speaking to a retired lawyer next to a manure/soil batching plant in Rouse Hill area and he says now the general populace know how he feels most days. Imagine that - manure dust contrary to lazy derelict Blacktown City Council development consent - on your home and the nearby Rouse Hill Regional Park food preparation area. Makes Louie the fly sound positively hygenic. Tsk tsk.
The possible role of dust storms in dispersing anthrax spores, which can survive for decades in the soil, was once a concern in New Zealand, and may still be. But biological contamination is not the only health concern created by Australian dust storms.
Dust blowing from central Australia and covering populated centres and agricultural land demonstrates that radioactive dust from uranium mine tailings could, and most likely will, be ingested and inhaled by citizens of Australia and New Zealand. It could also concentrated in the food chain, for example by animals grazing on dust contaminated fodder (this has been shown to occur with lead in particulate fallout downwind of lead smelters), and by filter feeders in marine and aquatic environments (this has been shown to occur with cadmium adsorbed onto fine particles of iron oxide).
The juggernaut seems a little too big to turn around now, so as usual we will probably just live - or die - with the consequences.
Currently the dust from tailings is being damped - but that’s not really good enough. I’d think the mine owners would need to be thinking of burial. Imagine asbestos type claims on a much vaster scale.
I am also concerned re the open cut uranium mines, dust from site and tailings.
I am also concerned that these winds blew thru Maralinga bringing radioactive dust east.
Similar winds gathering in the NT will bring depleted uranium from the bombing ranges US B52s use to test their bunker busters, 2.3 ton of DU each, to the east. This stuff is there for 4 billion years, safely if left alone, but not if blown anywhere.
The main point about this storm is that we must realise that just because we put or do things 1000ks from anywhere, a big dust storm can bring these things to our front door. Right now the tailings are dampened according to Meski (above) but what happens when the water runs out in 10, 50, 100 years, and we get these big storms?
The answer? Don’t do stuff out there we do not want in our own backyard, becasue quite like that is where it will end up.
I read it from either a Crikey or New Matilda article, Mark. I’m not sure that the water is going to run out in the timeframe you’re suggesting, but that the company won’t want to pay for the cost of continuing to do it.