New Air Toxics Program for Perth

25/04/04
State of the art air monitoring equipment will be used in a $400,000 program to assess levels of toxic air pollution in the Perth metropolitan area.
Environment Minister Judy Edwards said the joint Government and industry program would measure concentrations of toxic compounds in the air at selected sites in the metropolitan area.
"Air toxics are pollutants that may be present in very low concentrations, commonly found in emissions from motor vehicles, wood-heaters and some industries," Dr Edwards said.
"They include volatile organic compounds such as benzene and toluene, heavy metals such as lead and arsenic, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's), and carbonyl compounds.
"Common sources of air toxics include motor vehicles, wood-heaters and some industries.
"The study will also be useful for meeting future requirements of the newly ratified National Environmental Protection Measure (NEPM) for air toxics, which addresses air toxics in all Australian jurisdictions."
The States and Territories will now have to monitor, assess and report on the five most important compounds: benzene; toluene; xylenes; formaldehyde and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
The NEPM for air toxics was endorsed at a recent meeting of Environment Ministers in Adelaide and has been designed to ensure national standards for the protection of human health.
"This complements our own Air Toxics Program in WA, where we will install state-of-the-art equipment at a number of monitoring stations across the Perth metropolitan area," Dr Edwards said.
"The sites have been carefully selected to cover a cross-section of the most common sources of air toxics contributors.
"Duncraig was chosen as a representative high-density urban area where wood heaters are in common use.
"Perth CBD was chosen for its concentrated vehicle emissions, and a number of sampling sites in the Kwinana region are being considered for this study."
The Minister said there was very little information available on toxic air pollution in the metropolitan area.
"Apart from a small amount of PAH monitoring done in 1994 and monitoring of volatile organic compounds in 1999, there is little known about the ambient levels of these compounds," she said.
"This study will give us the first real indication of the level of toxic air pollution in Perth."
The study will start in July and last for 12 months.
The Kwinana Industrial Council will also be contributing towards the cost.
Minister's office: 9220 5050