Frequently Asked Questions [FAQs]

  1. What are STACKS?
  2. What are the potential problems from vehicle pollution emitted from stacks?
  3. What residents meetings have been held by Mad As to inform locals of the issue?
  4. What are some of the health impacts that I should be worried about?
  5. How will emissions travel from the stacks over the affected area?
  6. But doesn't the government monitor air quality in cases like this?
  7. Does Filtration Work and How Does it Work?
  8. Since I live near Epping Rd, won't the air pollution be better for me when the tunnel opens?
  9. Who can I contact in the State Government, State opposition, RTA and Tunnel operating company to voice my concerns?
  10. What are some ideas I can use in my letter to politicians?

 

 

  1. What are STACKS?

    Stacks are large tall structures (that often are disguised to look like buildings) which emit pollution from various sources. They take the pollution from exhausts from vehicles using the Lane Cove Tunnel and pump them via large fans into the surrounding air. For the Lane Cove Tunnel there are 2 stacks, one in Artarmon in Marden St, the other is in Lane Cove West on Sirius Drive.

     

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  2. What are the potential problems from vehicle pollution emitted from stacks?

    Heart attacks, leukaemia, lung cancer and other lung and respiratory diseases are among a long list of health impacts of vehicle pollution which could soon be affecting many more Sydney people. Particularly at risk will be children, the elderly, pregnant women and asthmatics. As a result of the new road tunnel linking the M2 to the Gore Hill Freeway, pollution particles, including those which can travel long distances and remain in the atmosphere for weeks, will be disgorged within a wide radius of the two tunnel exhaust stacks. Suburbs affected will include Ryde, Lane Cove, Naremburn, Greenwich, Hunters Hill, Linley Point, St Leonards, Chatswood, Willoughby, Osborne Park and Artarmon. However, this could be avoided if in-tunnel filtration was installed.

     

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  3. What residents meetings have been held by Mad As to inform locals of the issue?

    LOCAL RESIDENTS MEETING IN OCTOBER 2006


    "The Government should exercise a duty of care and not wait to count dead bodies" scientist Ray Kearney told a packed meeting held in Lane Cove held on 24 Oct for local residents. With medical and technical illustrations and scientific articles, he explained that, if opened as currently planned, the tunnel would be pumping out "proven carcinogens".

    LARGE PUBLIC MEETING 6TH DECEMBER NORTH RYDE RSL


    A large public meeting was held on the 6th December for all residents in the polluted zone. Over 150 people attended and heard about the serious health impacts from the planned unfiltered tunnel. A resolution was passed by the residents, that filtration be installed in all Sydney tunnels by the Iemma government. More than 60 people wrote a letter to Premier Iemma on the night voicing their concerns and demanding filtration for the Lane Cove Tunnel. The night was filmed by Channel 2, 7 and 9.

     

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  4. What are some of the health impacts that I should be worried about?

    Finer pollution particles are soluble in the lungs and can cause a drop in red blood cell count and cause platelets to clump, giving an increased risk of heart attacks. Low birth weights and smaller head circumferences in new born babies, as well as adverse effects on lung development in children aged from 10 to 18, are other dangerous side effects of emissions. Other symptoms will be experienced by the wider community.

    "One in five lung cancer deaths in cities in the US are caused by exposure to (PM 2.5) fine particles"(found in car exhaust fumes) Dr Kearney said at a recent public meeting. He added that health effects can be caused by a relatively short exposure time. A major cause of accelerated tumour growth is inflammation which is a by-product of exposure to toxins found in exhaust fumes.

    "It doesn't make sense to take the traffic off (Epping Road), channel it underground and pump the emissions out to pollute surrounding areas" he said, confirming that an opportunity to cut down traffic pollution across a wide area would be missed if those responsible failed to filter the tunnel.

     

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  5. How will emissions travel from the stacks over the affected area?

    Contrary to the RTA's claim that exhaust fume plumes float up and away, "ground strikes of these plumes are a common phenomenon" Dr Kearney said at a recent public meeting. This means that the flow of toxic emissions hits residential homes, schools and offices; the frequency and direction in which it does this depends on various factors including topography, temperature and wind direction and speed.

     

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  6. But doesn't the government monitor air quality in cases like this?

    Standards on the quantities of these fine-particle emissions that are permissible are unenforceable, as they are known only as 'reporting standards'.

    The current air quality monitoring taking place at various locations around the two tunnel stacks, should by law continue until May 2007, but the RTA requested permission (on 11 October) to erase any reference to the requirement of at least two years of monitoring which would have provided a stable base line of pollution level statistics. The RTA and the tunnel company want the tunnel to open earlier than announced - in January 2007. If they held firm to the scheduled opening in May 2007 they would have time to conform to Minister's conditions and continue the air quality monitoring. There would also be time to install in-tunnel filtration.

    These air quality monitoring stations can only measure the impact of the stack plume at that particular location over time. The plume is known to meander readily and will be affected by wind direction, speed, air temperature and topography. It will be difficult to rely on these as indicators of pollution levels as the affect at your home, school or workplace may be entirely different to that experienced at the monitoring stations.

    Nothing can stop the RTA removing the current community-based monitoring stations three years after the tunnel’s opening. However, approval finally rests with the Director General of NSW Planning. This allows the possibility that there will be no reliant system in place to check the level of emissions after that date. With the tunnel managing company secretly hoping to achieve traffic flow in excess of 160,000 vehicles per day by 2016, this is very alarming (60 millions cars per year).

    But figures have been "fiddled" by the RTA in relation to monitoring the M5 motorway tunnel pollution, according to Dr Kearney. In addition, an eminent Queensland scientist, commissioned by Lane Cove Council, considered projected levels of air pollution for the Lane Cove Tunnel to be underestimated by between 11 and 40%, he said, because correction factors were not incorporated into the measurements. Stressing the importance of in-tunnel filtration, he explained that stack filtration on its own can cause high levels of pollution in the tunnel for motorists when the system is overloaded and the flow impeded by ‘in-stack filters’.

     

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  7. Does Filtration Work and How Does it Work?

    Filtration works and has been proven in other countries such as Norway and Japan. In those countries, any tunnel over 2 km is automatically filtered. Filtration will remove up to 92.6% of dangerous fine particles and also largely remove other gases such as nitrogen dioxide.

    The cost to filter the new tunnel would be a fraction of the figure which has been made public by the government, said Dr Kearney, chairman of LCTAG. “The equipment would cost less than $35 million to purchase and install in the tunnel during construction. But now to retrofit in the tunnel, the Company has quoted $200 million which is outrageously incorrect." Filtration has been recommended by the Australian Medical Association and the recent parliamentary enquiry into tunnels and pollution.

    The community has called for action from the government, the RTA and the tunnel operators to install in-tunnel filtration before tens of thousands of people are adversely affected, especially those with risk-factors. The financial and human cost could be far greater if they continue to ignore the facts. We have sacked ex-Roads Minister “filtration is a placebo” Carl Scully to thank for his refusal to put the community’s health first.

     

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  8. Since I live near Epping Rd, won't the air pollution be better for me when the tunnel opens?

    It depends on how far you live from Epping Rd. If you live right on Epping Rd then the pollution you are now getting is fairly high. However, it is spread across say a 4 km stretch of road and dissipates into the now polluted Sydney airshed. Background levels of such pollution are monitored and known. Lane Cove (also close to Epping Rd) has on average 5-10 ug/m3 of PM2.5 particles (PM 2.5 are fine particles, PM 1.0 are ultrafine particles). Unfortunately, there is no known ‘safe’ level for this type of pollution. The Sydney airshed already exceeds the reportable standard for air quality set by the National Environmental Protection Council.

    In this case, the whole polluted mass of air from all the cars over the 4 km tunnel area is put into the stacks and the plume goes up and hits ground level some distance away. This concentrated form of pollution is known to be very harmful as you are getting many more times the fine and ultra fine particles and gases at one time. These are the instances where asthma attacks and heart attacks can be precipitated. Therefore if you don’t live right near Epping Road, air quality will be much worse for you at certain times when the wind is blowing your way.

    The residents from the M5 East have shown an INCREASED incidence of eye, nose and throat symptoms of between 17-30% after the tunnel opened. They were obviously getting a lot of pollution before that time as well.

    This is a fantastic opportunity to take all that pollution OUT of the already polluted background air and either improve or maintain our suburbs at the normal Sydney level of pollution. We can’t hope for more than that until cleaner systems of combustion are found and used by motor vehicles.

     

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  9. Who can I contact in the State Government, State opposition, RTA and Tunnel operating company to voice my concerns?

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  10. What are some ideas I can use in my letter to politicians/other authorities?

    “This is like the new asbestos, it’s very alarming”

    “We are trying to raise young kids in this area, but now we are concerned about their health. Our kids go to school within a kilometre of the stack. I am very worried they are going to get asthma.”

    “We came to this area because we were seduced by the wonderful bush outlook, housing affordability and proximity to our extended family. It comes to me as an absolute catastrophe therefore, that I read you and your government propose not to filter the Lane Cove tunnel, as my only son and my partner suffer from severe asthma and are under regular medication to maintain it.” (Letter to Mr Iemma)

    “We have been in contact with residents from the M5 East who say they have experienced sore eyes, runny noses and sore throats regularly when the wind blows their way. They also smell rubber most of the day.”

    “People in the local community are now realizing this issue will affect them directly, when the wind blows there will be no escape from it.”

    “We have moved to a quiet bushland area to get away from traffic and pollution, now the pollution is going to be belching over our house and there is nothing we can do about it.”

    “Filtration works and has been proved in countries like Japan and Norway. Research shows that over 90% of fine particles can be taken out of the plume before it hits our homes and schools.”

    “The State Labor Government and RTA refuse to filter the tunnel. The liberal party has promised to install filtration. The community at large is very upset about this issue. Voters will be heard on this issue.”

    "The recent parliamentary enquiry into Sydney pollution which was reported in the SMH a few weeks back recommended all tunnels be filtered."

    “What a great New Year present, all parents and citizens should be concerned.”

    SOME EXAMPLE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

    Tunnel payment really on the nose SMH Letters to the Editor

    Our children's health is being sold by the Iemma Government ("Iemma's $25m election bribe", December 9-10). The payment is clearly an outrageous ploy to avoid another Cross City Tunnel-style fiasco before the state election. In a few short weeks, carcinogenic emissions will spew from a stack 400 metres from my son's primary school. It's hard for a family standing where we are to see that as value for money.
    Danielle Finch, Lane Cove

    Should the State Government exercise its duty of care to its citizens before its interests with corporate enterprise? Apparently not. The Government has agreed to pay a further $25 million to the tunnel operator to compensate for road disruptions when there are grave, well-documented concerns for the health and wellbeing of the surrounding community resulting from lack of tunnel filtration. It's time to put people and the environment first and for governments to take their duty of care seriously.
    C. Hannan, Gladesville

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