The Forgotten - opinion piece

Concerns about the potential health impacts the Lane Cove Tunnel’s ventilation stacks may have on the community have been widely publicised. Open for less than two weeks, the Lane Cove Tunnel has already experienced its fair share of criticism, and rightly so.

The demand for in-tunnel filtration has remained at the political forefront in a string of recent protests organised by local action group Mums and Dads Against Stacks (MAD AS).

Alex Burke and Elizabeth Court from MAD AS have been vocal in their concerns about the location of the Lane Cove Tunnel’s stacks, which are situated in densely populated areas close to 58 primary schools and Royal North Shore Hospital. Asthmatics, children and the elderly are considered most at risk from pollution.

On the opening day of the tunnel MAD AS held a funeral for the loss of clean air.

Dani Finch, MAD AS treasurer, spoke passionately about their sorrow.

“From today fine particle pollution from which there is no safe level of exposure pumps out of stacks straight onto our homes, our workplaces our schools and our hospitals.” Mrs. Finch said. “From today we are at a greatly increased risk of asthma, cancer, heart attack. Our precious children are at much greater risk.”

The community have a right to be concerned.

As former NSW Opposition leader Peter Debnam recognized, this is an issue of public safety. We are not using world’s best practice in the construction of Australia’s tunnel ventilation systems despite countless studies linking vehicle pollution to poor health. Tunnel operators and the government should be working together to update the ventilation systems to safeguard community health.

Dr Ray Kearney, Lane Cove Tunnel Action Group Chairman and Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Sydney University, points out that the Minister's Conditions of Approval for the tunnel allows up to14 tonnes of toxic particle matter and 156 tonnes of carcinogenic vapours to be dumped into the local atmosphere. There is no safe level for either the toxic particles or the VOCs.

“My position is that just as some churches have steeples as a symbol of spirituality, the NSW Carr and Iemma Governments has unfiltered smokestacks jutting up into the skyline as a perpetual symbol of immorality and unconscionable conduct.” Dr Kearney said.

However, there is another issue that has been overlooked and that could have potentially devastating consequences for the community.

The recent Burnley tunnel accident in Melbourne demonstrated the unpredictable nature of plume movement. Photographs showed black smoke, a result of the fire inside, pouring from the tunnel’s stack in many directions. This disproved Connector Motorways, the company that built and operate the Lane Cove Tunnel and the Roads and Traffic Authority’s insistence that pollution from stacks is expelled high in the air and diluted.

Instead, the movement of the stack’s emissions is dependent on factors such as wind direction and speed, which means that pollution can potentially hit residents’ homes and means that people near the tunnel stacks are in danger of breathing toxic air.

Connector Motorways CEO Ian Hunt

It doesn’t help that the community have not been informed of an emergency plan. The release of the smoke would happen so quickly that it is essential to have a plan. Yet Ian Hunt, Connector Motorway’s Chief Executive Officer, insists the risk of a tunnel fire putting the resident’s outside at risk is too small to account for.

Yet emergency procedures for motorists in the tunnel are extensive, so this doesn’t add up. A small but potentially devastating scenario should be accounted for in Connector Motorway’s risk management. Why isn’t it?

Locals have been forgotten. The government and tunnel operators have neglected their duty of care in more ways than one.

By Kate Schneider
Published in the Sydney Observer May Issue