Air Monitoring Dumbed Down in NSW

If you’ve noticed the smog on the western Sydney horizon recently, the question is has the agency that is charged by the Government to monitor it, noticed it?

As the State Government's budget cut backs bite into the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC), drastic reductions have been made to the monitoring of waterway and air quality in NSW.

Workforce cuts of between 20% and as high as 45% in some sections are now coming into effect. One of the hard hit areas has been the Department's Air Monitoring Section, which is responsible for collecting data on a range of air pollutants known to cause respiratory illnesses and other health problems.

John Cahill, General Secretary of the PSA, said today "it was outrageous that the Carr Government had so little regard for the health of its citizens."

"We have seen the closure of all the air monitoring stations collecting samples for Volatile Organic Compound analysis i.e. monitoring of priority air borne pollutants known to be hazardous if not carcinogenic such as freons, xylenes and benzenes. This includes the site at Earlwood, a suburb that has been adversely affected by the ventilation stacks from the M5 tunnel and the George Street site in the city, which is very close to the cross-city tunnel entrance. Monitoring these pollutants has stopped at Rozelle, St Marys, Newcastle and in the Illawarra. The DEC laboratories were the only labs in Australia routinely doing this analysis."

"The Metropolitan Air Quality Monitoring Network, which measures the particulate fallout (from car and industry emissions) from the atmosphere has been substantially wound back with samples reduced from around 1500 to 450 per year, and the presence of heavy metals will no longer be tested."

"The Blacktown and Westmead air monitoring stations have been closed. A single air monitoring station to replace these sites has been proposed at Prospect but is yet to be established and has not even been approved by Blacktown Council. This is despite western Sydney being a known 'hot spot' for photochemical smog (ozone) events and massive urban growth proposals expected to be finalised by the Government in the near future."

"Over $1 million worth of scientific equipment now lies idle as there are neither staff to operate it nor money to pay day to day operating costs."