Friday, December 7, 2007

The RTA's Deceptions Regarding the Health Hazards of Alum Stone Dust

As is confirmed by Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) documentation, RTA authoritarianism has been prioritised throughout the processing of the (Bulahdelah Pacific Highway Upgrade) Option E scheme and has been bolstered via the disregarding/distorting of facts related to human rights issues.

The RTA is well aware of the fact that there are multiple concerns – not just ‘one concern’ [1] – regarding the dust which would be produced during construction of Option E.

Alunit is Latin for alum. It is from this that the word alunite – meaning: alum – is derived. Alum, aluminilite, alum stone and alunite are synonyms.

Those who are not neophytes to alum stone and aren’t attempting to impress/deceive with newly gained and inadequate knowledge commonly refer to it as alum. This is the case with the nickname of the mountain in Bulahdelah’s eastern sector, ‘the Alum Mountain’. It is not and has never been: ‘the Alum Stone Mountain’; ‘the Aluminilite Mountain’; ‘the Alunite Mountain’; or, according to RTA terminology, ‘The Potassium Aluminium Sulfate [sic] Hydroxide [2] Mountain’; it is called the Alum Mountain due to the fact that alum is a name for its massive quantities of rock-forming sulphate mineral [3].

Concerns regarding alum dust were not only expressed by those who were closeted with the RTA during their closed Focus Group meetings [4]: in response to other citizens who raised concerns about alum dust (and heritage issues), the RTA’s former Project Manager for the Bulahdelah section of the upgrade declared (long before the addition of Part 3A to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act), “The RTA can build a highway anywhere.”

In the case of alum-bearing dust, the RTA’s first step in their ‘we can build it anywhere’ approach to their Option E scheme was to attempt a put-down with the claim:

· ‘Alum does not occur naturally’.

Although alum – as in the product extracted from alum stone – can and does occur naturally, [5] it is not the processed product which is of concern to informed community members.

Next, the RTA announced:

· “We’ll wet down the dust.” (This was followed up in the EIS with ‘Wet down construction areas to minimise dust emissions’ [6].)

Commercial processing of alum stone can entail calcination (roasting – as occurs during bushfires on the Alum Mountain) followed by lixiviation (separation of soluble from insoluble substances through percolation in water) or the even simpler method of lengthy exposure to the elements. Lixiviation can also take place when alum stone is simply soaked in water. In other words, ‘wetting down’ alum-bearing dust would produce alum. (The RTA has acknowledged that ‘the chemical alum … is hazardous when mixed with water’ [7]. Also: ‘When alum is mixed with water, it forms sulphuric acid which is hazardous’ [8].)

Although arrogance and ignorance could be said to be responsible for the above two (bulleted) RTA pronouncements, nothing but a blatant attempt to deliberately endanger the health of citizens, including children incarcerated in schools near the proposal, could be responsible for the following RTA statement:-

· ‘… the raw mineral which would be exposed during construction is alunite, which is not toxic and poses no risk to the community’. [9]

The RTA has admitted that there are ‘high concentrations of acid sulphate rockin the Alum Mountain section of Option E. [10]

The ‘acid sulphate rock’ to which the RTA refers is alunite (alum stone). The acid it produces is sulphuric acid. The RTA has acknowledged that sulphuric acid is ‘hazardous’.

Sulphuric acid is corrosive and, as the RTA is aware, so much so that it can corrode roads.

Aluminosis – which is a Schedule 1 Prescribed Dust Disease under the Dust Diseases Tribunal Act 1989 No. 63 – and cancer are just two of the hazards posed by inhalation and ingestion of alum-bearing dust (alum stone dust).

Adele Carrall.

References:-

1. Bulahdelah Upgrading the Pacific Highway Environmental Impact Statement (Bulahdelah EIS) Technical Paper 9 3. Potential Hazards and Risks.

2. Bulahdelah EIS Summary (S35) – Air Quality.

3. Encyclopædia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-18100/alunite

4. As per 1.

5. Chambers’s Encyclopædia. (Internet search results concur with this.)

6. Bulahdelah EIS Vol. 6 Technical Paper 9 Hazard and Risk Table 3.1 Page 3-8.

7. As per 1.

8. As per 2.

9. As per 1.

10. Bulahdelah EIS Vol. 6 Technical Paper 11 4.9 Acid Sulphate Rock Page 4-33.

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