Brooklyn residents are demanding a dusty road be closed after a court’s “disastrous decision” against making businesses pay to seal Jones Road in the polluted Brooklyn Industrial Estate.
In July, Star Weekly reported residents were moving out of Victoria’s most polluted suburb after often enduring dust levels as high as those experienced during the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.
Environment Protection Authority data shows sealing Jones Road would reduce the estate’s pollution by 15 per cent. Last financial year, there were 29 days of excessive dust in Brooklyn. The World Health Organisation warns that people should not be exposed to dust of the levels in Brooklyn more than five days a year.
Last month, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal sided with three Jones Road businesses that objected to paying their allocated share of $2.7 million roadworks to fix Jones Road and, further down the track, Bunting Road.
The Brooklyn Residents Action Group (BRAG) met last Wednesday to “plead” with Brimbank and Hobsons Bay councils, VicRoads and industry to embrace a proposal to close Jones Road.
The group wants the road closed north of Federation Trail to create a “green and clean belt”, with 1200 trucks a day diverted to Bunting Road until the East West Link is
built.
Action group president Bert Boere said truck traffic on unsealed Jones Road threw dust into the air and transferred mud on to Old Geelong and Geelong roads. “Closing Jones Road and repairing Old Geelong Road verges, nature strips and gutters would reduce the dust considerably,” he said.
EPA metro manager Lisa McLeod said it had commissioned a mobile dust-monitoring instrument to be driven around the estate at times of dust occurrence to identify sources.
“It’s clear that sealing, or any option that reduces traffic, will result in less dust being produced,” she said.
“However, the EPA is not yet in a position to reliably estimate how much of a reduction and just which option would be of most benefit to the community.
“Answering this question is one of the reasons EPA has purchased and will be using the new mobile dust measuring system.”
