The Deadly Hazards of the Acid Sulphate Rock Dust the RTA Intends to Inflict on Human Lives and the Myall River and Lakes

NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) bureaucrats are currently conducting what are meant to be monthly meetings with approximately twenty (a relative few) community members who have taken upon themselves the huge responsibility of acting for community interests. Of the non-RTA meeting attendees:

• only two are knowledgeable as to the details of the RTA’s processing of the Option E route; and
  

• only about three (including the abovementioned two) have taken the time to educate themselves regarding any of the life-jeopardising hazards to which the RTA intends to unnecessarily expose Bulahdelah residents, visitors to the township – including children who travel from other areas to Bulahdelah’s mass schooling institutions – and road users.

And those three or so individuals have not only the RTA and their Communo-Fascist tactics to contend with: some of their fellow meeting attendees are so naïve that, through their silence/their outspokenness regarding irrelevant matters, they are unwittingly supporting the RTA objective to endanger human lives – including the lives of children.

At this year’s meetings, RTA bureaucrats continue to play down, including, in some cases, by lying about, hazards involved in the use of Option E. These include the dangers of acid-sulphate dust which would be produced during construction. Facts additional to those at the Pacific Highway - NSW Government's Killer Act blogspot site are:-

In the Alum Mountain section of the ‘Option E’ proposal, there are ‘locally high concentrations of acid sulphate rock’ and that rock is ‘acid forming’. (Ref. Geotechnical Investigation for Route Selection: PPK – now Parsons Brinkerhoff – 2001)

The acid produced by the rock described by the RTA as ‘acid sulphate rock’ is sulphuric acid. Sulphuric acid is carcinogenic. Inhalation of sulphuric-acid-producing rock dust can also cause aluminosis.

Dust produced during the removal (including via blasting) of a gargantuan section of the western foot of the Alum Mountain would be acid sulphate. The acid sulphate constituents of the dust would be from: acid sulphate soils, acid sulphate clays and at least two types of acid sulphate rock: rhyolite and alum stone (alunite).

Route-processing tactics employed by the RTA include avoidance and misrepresentation of the actual concerns of citizens. The following is but one of many examples which can be found in the RTA’s own documentation:-

‘Dust would be generated during construction of the proposal, especially during earthworks. The total amount of dust generated during the construction of the proposed Upgrade would depend on the silt and moisture content in the soil and types of operations being carried out’. (Ref. Bulahdelah Upgrade of The [sic] Pacific Highway Submissions Report 2.4 Environmental Impacts of the Proposal 2.4.7 Air Quality.)

The ‘total amount of dust generated during construction’ is irrelevant to the fact that, in addition to other dust-related health issues e.g. asthma, dust which contains a fluid-triggered carcinogen and can cause aluminosis would be generated during construction of the proposal and would be ingested, including via inhalation, by community members.

From the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) document Bulahdelah Upgrading the Pacific Highway Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): Volume 6 Technical Paper 11, page 4-33:-

NOTE: THE WORDS POTENTIAL AND POTENTIALLY WERE USED IN THE EIS AS A MEANS OF UNDERPLAYING ACTUAL HAZARDS.

4.9 Acid Sulphate Rock [bold typeface added for emphasis]

During the Geotechnical Investigation for Route Selection (PPK 2001) rock samples were tested for acid producing potential. The test results indicated a range from nonacid to potentially strongly acid producing rock. Samples indicated moderate and strong acid producing potential on the lower slopes of Bulahdelah ([the] Alum) Mountain north of Ann Street/Bombah Point Road, from the Bulahdelah Formation geological unit through which the preferred route would be cut.

A sample from the colluvial area [a landslide area claimed by the RTA to be ‘ancient’ – located above residences and Bulahdelah Central School] was also designated as potentially acid forming. It is likely that mixing resulting from the excavation, haul and placing would reduce the risk of fill containing locally high concentrations of acid sulphate rock.

Note: As is the case with already extracted alum, when it is immersed in water the alum content of alum stone hydrolyses and forms sulphuric acid. The up to twenty four metres deep ‘cut’ into the Alum Mountain for the six-lanes-plus width Option E would include the area on the northern side of the bridge. Sulphuric acid is toxic to marine life. The RTA’s response to the fact that the alum stone dust produced during excavation would be carcinogenic and could also cause aluminosis in humans was that the dust would be ‘wet down’. Wetting alum stone dust produces both alum and sulphuric acid.

This post initially published: 23rd July, 2008.