Whangarei District residents are hoping that air quality testing outside their rural homes will force the local council to ban logging trucks from these roads or have them sealed entirely.
According to the Northern Advocate late last year the Whangarei District Council sealed ten 100m strips outside homes on Wright, McCardle and Pipiwai roads to try to alleviate problems with dust from logging trucks that have been plaguing the residents.
The council allocated $400,000 over the next two years for the sealing after the New Zealand Transport Agency declined a $4.5 million funding request for a full 9km seal of Wright Rd and McCardle Rd.
Since the work is expected to cost $532,000, the council asked logging and trucking industries to make up the $132,000 shortfall.
The council is paying for air quality monitoring equipment to monitor how effective the sealing works have been on Wright Rd, with the testing starting on Wednesday and lasting for two weeks.
Wright Rd resident and Pipiwai Titoki Advocacy for Community Health and Safety Group spokeswoman Alex Wright told the Northern Advocate that residents were happy the dust particle testing was being done and hoped it would lead to the road being fully sealed.
If the dust particles exceeded national safety standards, the group hoped the Northland Regional Council, which is responsible for air quality issues, would issue Whangarei District Council with an abatement notice to stop the logging trucks going down the road.
Results from PM10 (particles’ micron size) tests will be used to determine how much of a health hazard the dust is around the homes that have had the strips sealed in front of them.
Wright told the Northern Advocate that under national air quality standards the level of particulate matter, which is what the monitor will be testing for, needs to be less than 50 micrograms per cubic metre in a 24 hour period.
“Any exceeding of PM10 and the NRC needs to by law serve the WDC an abatement notice,” says Wright.
Northland’s Medical Officer of Health Clair Mills says potentially dangerous dust is an issue for many Northland roads and around the country, but particularly on those with heavy logging truck movements.
Mills told the Northern Advocate dust could cause serious health issues for residents and exacerbate existing medical conditions, and if the national standards, devised by the Ministry of Health, were exceeded then the NRC was able to issue an abatement notice.
“It’s a problem of the rural infrastructure that hasn’t been addressed as logging activity has increased. If a person wants to subdivide a rural property they have to bring the roading infrastructure up to standard, but forestry (harvesting) doesn’t have to,” says Mills.
