MEDICAL experts have warned Moorabool residents of the possible adverse health effects, particularly for children, of an open-cut coalmine in the shire.
More than 100 people gathered at Bacchus Marsh’s town hall last week to hear Dr Eugenie Kayak, head of Doctors for the Environment Australia in Victoria and paediatrician Dr Merryn Redenbach discuss the potential health effects should Mantle Mining, now exploring for brown coal around Parwan, eventually build an open-cut coalmine.
Dr Redenbach, a doctor at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, said it was vital more research was conducted on air pollution near coalmines, particularly those flanking residential areas.
She had been presented with anecdotal evidence children’s respiratory systems were damaged when living in areas of high air pollution.
Dr Redenbach told the meeting particulate matter near coalmines could include lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen and heavy metals.
“Exposure to this can aggravate and cause asthma and a decrease in lung function. Having spent a lot of time working in children’s emergency departments, one of the most frightening experiences in my professional life is treating children with severe asthma.
“We are standing side by side with nurses and parents watching a child struggling to breathe and crossing our fingers that the next treatment we give will be the one that helps the child turn the corner.”
She said 80 per cent of children’s alveoli, the tiny air sacs in the lungs where oxygen transfer to the blood takes place, developed after birth.
Dr Redenbach said there was also a causal link between bronchitis and air particulate pollution.
She said although there were two different sets of requirements for air quality monitoring, investigations were not effective.
She said the state government was required to report to the federal government on the levels of six different criteria pollutants, but this monitoring looked at an average experienced by the entire population, rather than particular communities at risk.
“The monitoring regime deliberately excludes communities likely to be exposed to the highest levels, so that they won’t effect the average result.”
The second type, she said, was those particular areas of risk such as a coalmine. However here, the responsibility for monitoring was with the company itself.
“They are required to do the testing, and sometimes to provide that data to the EPA,” she said.
However, they are not required to make it publicly available.”
Dr Redenbach said the only air quality monitoring at Hazelwood mine and power station in Morwell – which has a population of about 13,400 – took place in Traralgon, 15 kilometres away, likening it to Bacchus Marsh monitoring taking place in Melton.
“I understand that Bacchus Marsh is in a depression, which means that air does not circulate.
“This is a really important factor that needs to be taken into account and modelled.”
A spokesman from the Environment Protection Authority said mining issues were dealt with by other departments, and only if there was an issue with contamination or pollution would it become involved.
Last Wednesday in State Parliament, Melton MP Don Nardella tabled a petition signed by more than 450 Moorabool residents opposed to a proposed open-cut brown coal mine and exploration by Mantle.
Mantle Mining did not respond before the Weekly’s deadline, but has maintained that community protests have been premature.
“We’re just investigating what’s there. We can’t have a conversation on environment, economic and social impacts without knowing what’s there,” exploration manager Callum Lamont said last month.
