Updated
Photo:
Piles of asbestos and rusting equipment at the abandoned Woodsreef mine. (NSW Ombudsman)
People in Barraba, in the New England region of northern New South Wales, have demanded to know why they were never invited to sit on the taskforce implementing a remediation plan at the derelict Woodsreef Asbestos mine.
About 90 people packed the amphitheatre of The Playhouse Hotel last night in Barraba for a progress report on the Woodsreef mine, which was abandoned in 1983 and never cleaned up.
Taskforce chairman Brad Mullard told the gathering a Health Risk Assessment is imminent.
?(They will be) installing monitoring, looking at what is the air quality, whether there?s asbestos in the air and measuring that around the mine site as well as in the township,? he said.
The meeting also heard the closure of the road that passes through the mine is probably not negotiable.
Landholder Ben Burgess tabled a motion demanding the taskforce approach the government to include people from Barraba in decision-making.
?It?s about getting community representation and making sure there?s an evidence-based outcome for the local community to make sure that all facets of the risks, as well as the costs, to the Barraba community are taken into account,? he said.
?I think it would be unwise to reach a conclusion that people in the community have no expertise and nothing to offer.?
Meanwhile, leading public health physician told the briefing there is no safe level of exposure to chrysotile, or ?white?, asbestos.
Dr David Durrheim says anyone who believes white asbestos is safe should read the latest data coming out of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
?When they categorise a cancer as a Category One it means there?s definitive evidence,? he said.
?It?s like smoking and lung cancer, that?s the sort of category. They?ve established that white asbestos exposure in the occupational setting causes lung cancer, mesothelioma, larynx cancer and ovarian cancer.?
It is estimated about 40,000 Australians will have some kind of asbestos-related disease by the year 2020.
First posted
Article source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-27/community-wants-voice-in-asbestos-mine-plan/4158650?section=nsw
Source: http://www.alpharm.co.uk/2012/07/community-wants-voice-in-asbestos-mine-plan/
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