ENVIRONMENT Minister Ryan Smith is resisting calls for a taskforce to tackle Brooklyn’s long-running dust and odour problems.
On his first visit to Brooklyn last week, Mr Smith said resident groups had been “exactly right in their concerns” about dust issues.
“You can see that on a less-damp day there would be a lot of dust; that if it was windy the dust would go across the neighbourhood and across the community,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter whose responsibility the road is, the air quality issues are issues that affect everyone and it falls fairly and squarely in my area, with the EPA as the authority under my responsibility, so action needed to be taken.”
Q & A: Minister talks to the Weekly
BROOKLYN DUST: $1.4m ‘rescue’ may not beat pollution
Williamstown MP Wade Noonan described the $1.4 million state government funding as “a victory for the local community” but said there was still a great deal of work to be done to turn around decades of environmental neglect across the industrial precinct.
He said politics must be put aside and he called on the government to create an “implementation group” that could work through the Brooklyn evolution strategy.
But Mr Smith said because it was a council plan, it was not for the government to “come in and tell the council how to do it”.
“But I think today’s announcement shows that we’re happy to assist the council … we’ll help where we can, but as far as implementing their plan we’re going to leave it to council.”
