Health concerns raised over Burrup industrial pollution

Woodside’s Pluto LNG facility on the Burrup Peninsula

A Western Australian public health researcher has shared her concerns regarding air pollution caused by industry near Murujuga on the Burrup Peninsula in the Pilbara.

Dr Sajni Gudka is a Public Health Researcher and the author of the report ‘Living with Uncertainty: Every breath you take in the Burrup Peninsula’. She spoke to Ngaarda Radio’s Camilia Sampson about her report’s findings.

Dr Gudka explained that industrial developments around Murujuga all emit pollution that could be hazardous for people living and working in the area. 

“Since the 1960s, a number of heavy industries have been approved and developed in the area, and they all emit different kinds of air pollution into the air,” she said.

Dr Gudka explained that Dampier Port, Rio Tinto iron ore facilities, Woodside’s North West Shelf Venture, Woodside’s Pluto LNG plant, Yara Fertilizers, and Yara’s Technical Ammonia Nitrate plant all “individually, and therefore collectively, emit a lot of pollution that sits in the air, or what we call the airshed, above Murujuga and the Burrup Peninsula.”

There are many different chemicals emitted by these developments. Dr Gudka explained that many of these chemicals are proven to impact human health by causing cancer and other illnesses.

“The chemicals we're talking about are things like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide. And then particulate matter, which is your PM10, PM2.5, and your volatile organic compounds. And they've all been identified as being harmful to human health, to the point where some of them are listed as carcinogenic and some are considered highly harmful,” Dr Gudka said.

Dr Gudka is concerned that, both in the short-term and over longer periods, pollution levels around the Burrup may be unsafe for human breathing. Health problems that could be caused include asthma, chest infections, high blood pressure, heart failure, and cancer.

The State Government’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) provides real-time ambient air quality monitoring in many other places in Western Australia, including Port Hedland, but not near the Burrup Peninsula. Dr Gudka believes more precise data and closer monitoring of air pollution is required on the Burrup and in surrounding areas of Karratha, Dampier, and Roebourne. She would like DWER to extend its ambient air quality monitoring into these areas.

“What we would really like is to know what is the quality of the air that people breathe, because at the moment without knowing that we are going in blind,” she said.

Other researchers have raised environmental and heritage concerns regarding the same chemicals Dr Gudka discussed. In particular, researchers are concerned that chemicals like nitrogen dioxide are wearing away at the Murujuga rock art, which is a stone’s throw from industry and at least 40 000 years old.

“I know that there are concerns around the air pollution and what it's doing to the rock art, and what it's doing to the rivers and the water sources,” she said.

“I do know that there are other research groups working on this and I do wonder how serious this is and whether we are taking it seriously enough, because those rock arts are amazing and they are world heritage.”