5 April 2010

Brindabella Park Air Toxic?

| TenPro
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Brindabella Park is a business precinct adjacent to the Canberra Airport. The air at Brindabella Park is often saturated with the acrid stench of aircraft engine exhaust fumes mostly outside the buildings but at times inside the buildings as well. This catches at the back of my throat and often makes me cough. The internet has a plethora of articles regarding the toxic effects of aircraft engine exhaust fumes on humans. Some examples are:

Despite the preponderance of evidence that proves the toxic effects of aircraft engine exhaust on humans the ACT government has allowed the building of Brindabella Park and other buildings adjacent to the Canberra Airport.

I am so close that I could throw a rock onto the runway. As a result the future holds much ill health for thousands of people and the resulting massive health costs to the tax payer. This is particularly distressing for the children who attend the child care centre at Brindabella Park as the seeds of future ill health will be sown at a very early age and have a much more insidious effect as they are still developing and they spend much of their time outside where the air is most toxic. Of course it will be many years before most people become ill and it will not be possible to establish a cause and effect relationship so it will not be possible to find the ACT government legally liable.

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I love the smell of kerosene in the morning.

Tiger Airways makes you walk long distances across the tarmac on their flights to get from the plane to their booking “shed” and back, are we being exposed to toxic fumes then? For that matter, ive never seen a ground controller or one of those luggage cart drivers out on the tarmac wearing breathing protective gear either. I think if there was even a minor risk, you would see all the staff covering up all the time on the tarmac, this isn’t even a storm in a teacup, its pure codswallop. Sounds like the OP needs to get checked out for plant or other allergies.

Get back to us when you have any measurements of the actual toxic substances you’re grizzling about. “Funny smells” != concrete data.

Also, haven’t noticed any huge level of fatalities amongst air traffic controllers and firies out at the airport.

To be charitable, some people are more susceptible to environmental pollutants. If you are that much more sensitive than the general population, and the pollutants are not exceeding “generally accepted as safe” levels, then perhaps you need to look at working elsewhere.

You don’t have a laser printer anywhere near your desk do you…?

Woody Mann-Caruso11:54 am 06 Apr 10

I am so close that I could throw a rock onto the runway.

That sounded like a threat against our civil aviation infrastructure. It’s a wooden box, a black hood and strategically-placed wires for you.

troll-sniffer11:34 am 06 Apr 10

Ah the old chase the magic millions without buying a lottery ticket game eh? There are better places to play it than taking on the airport.

Methinks tenpro is one of the growing band of public servants who get so worked up about all the threats to a comfortable safe life that everything is seen as a potential risk. No doubt if his or her workstation experienced a rise from 22 degrees to 23.5 degrees it would be a catastrophe and OH&S reps, HR and the building manager would be hauled over the colas until conditions returned to perfection.

Physiologically, the human body is capable of dealing with most low level contaminants in our environment. Just because a substance has been shown to be harmful in lab tests is no indicator of whether it will affect you in real life. Your body will store and dispose of the small quantity of soot and hydrocarbons you inhale in the Canberra environment, and the efficacy of your inbuilt filtering will increase markedly if you do some meaningful exercise each day. (Meaningful exercise by definition does not include air-conditioned environments such as the all too common gyms that pollute our city).

And if you still believe that an environment where hundreds of other workers live and breathe without a moment’s concern is not for you, then there is the option of trawling the old gazette to escape to a ‘safer’ location.

This morning, while stopping for fuel at the airport servo, I checked where the child care centre was (having not noticed it before). It’s at least 80-100m from the servo, with a large office building between them. It’s also several hundred metres from the fence which surrounds the runway (which is a further few hundred metres past the fence).
Canberra Airport has a couple of dozen flights a day.
Conclusion: you’d get more polluted air sitting beside Northbourne Aveunue, waiting at a bus stop.
Don’t be so dramatic!
Also, as several have pointed out here, the ACT Govt has no say about developments in the airport precinct (until recently, when they lobbied the Federal Minister to put a restriction on development there until public transport was improved – which I am guessing has happened, as I often see ACTION buses out there now).

Cannot blame the ACT government on this one. One of the loopholes in the airport regulations is the owner can build what ever they like more or less without local planning permission. Hence the airports quickly build Brand Depot, built to foil DFO (which the Snow family also wanted) and all the office buildings.

As for the air quality at the airport, Canberra is hardly a major airport. If you can smell it maybe you are ultra sensitive.

screaming banshee8:29 pm 05 Apr 10

I suspect those employed on and around the hardstand such as baggage handlers and refueller operators would be more at risk of ill-effects and I’ve never seen them walking around wearing gas masks or heard of class-action’s against anyone.

Tenpro said:

I am so close that I could throw a rock onto the runway.

No you’re not, and statements such as this further weaken your argument

Ah, the joys of the internet!

I hope you hold your breath when you’re outside because those toxic fumes from cars, trucks and buses might get to you too……

And to make you even more paranoid, have you thought that all the crap in the building surrounding you might be dangerous too? All those nice plastics, the fumes from paints, carpet treaments, window tinting material, vinyl/timber flooring, lighting, computers, printers, photocopiers, and all the other assorted things that everyone is exposed to in an office?

Oh, and don’t drink tea, coffee, softdrink or water either – they’ll kill you too.

Basically, you’re cactus – I give you a month to live. Have a nice life – and remember, it’s not how long you live, but it’s what you pack into it.

It’s every Australian family’s dream. A quarter acre block. A Pool Room. A barbie. And an airport over the back fence. (The Castle)

GardeningGirl3:24 pm 05 Apr 10

DeadlySchnauzer said :

If there were any danger, I would imagine that there would be high rates of illness in people working in any kind of aircraft industry (hosties, pilots, check in desk operators etc). There are thousands of airports all round the world who have been employing millions of people for decades, and as far as I know there is no studies showing significant increases in illness.

In fact one of the papers you link to above concludes that while there are dangerous particulates in jet exhaust, their levels and size are no more dangerous than car exhaust particulates found in any standard urban area.

I’ve certainly noticed the smell of avgas on a minority, but a fairly significant minority, of occasions.

I imagine looking at the baggage handlers would give a better indication than pilots, FA’s, etc. (Although crews have had problems with aircraft fumes, but that’s a separate issue to do with certain types of aircraft.)

There are links between certain exposures (occupational, geographic, etc) and health outcomes, but the general population probably isn’t aware of it, and if they are they wouldn’t be losing sleep over the difference between say a 1% risk of a disease and a 2% risk. The person who gets caught by that doubling of risk would probably have a different perspective on the matter.

Given what I’ve heard regarding the various factors relating to urban environments I’m not sure what a “standard urban area” is. I wouldn’t find the comparison with something like living near a freeway or a tunnel exhaust stack in a major city particularly reassuring. IMO an attitude of what can we do to keep risks to a minimum is more helpful than an attitude of this risk is no worse than that risk so let’s stick our heads in the sand.

I have actually expressed my surprise in the past to hubby about the childcare centre. I would have sited it further away from both the terminal and the petrol station.

sexynotsmart2:43 pm 05 Apr 10

OK, obvious troll post but what the hey. I’m on holiday.

When you say ‘find the ACT government legally liable’, you really mean US. You want ‘we the people’ to pay.

So how many schools and hospitals will your claim be valued at?

Perhaps you should direct your pseudo-legal ranting to another party. Perhaps one that’s actually responsible and has very deep pockets – OPEC. They’re more responsible for the exhaust content than we are.

been in a couple of Woden offices that got toxic when workers put their compressor right under the airco inlet – ducted exhaust fumes

Acrid stench? Can’t say I’ve ever noticed it, or any fuel/exhaust smells for that matter. I’d expect baggage handlers would be dropping like flies world-wide if it was as ‘toxic’ as you’re claiming.

The only place I can smell the stench of jet fuel is at the very rear of parking lot P3. The rest of it seems just fine by my nose.

I’ve been at at Brindabella Park since 2004 and the air seems fine to me. No acrid stenches or insidious effects have I experienced.

Toughen Up!

DeadlySchnauzer12:12 pm 05 Apr 10

Sorry for completeness, here is the reference from the paper:

“Using available monitoring data, the possibilities and limitations for a risk assessment approach for the population living around large airports are presented. The analysis of such data shows that there is an impact on the air quality of the adjacent communities, but this impact does not result in levels higher than those in a typical urban environment.”

Diddums. How about finding another job? No one forces you to take a job located at Brindabella if as you say you feel so strongly about aircraft exhaust.

DeadlySchnauzer12:06 pm 05 Apr 10

If there were any danger, I would imagine that there would be high rates of illness in people working in any kind of aircraft industry (hosties, pilots, check in desk operators etc). There are thousands of airports all round the world who have been employing millions of people for decades, and as far as I know there is no studies showing significant increases in illness.

In fact one of the papers you link to above concludes that while there are dangerous particulates in jet exhaust, their levels and size are no more dangerous than car exhaust particulates found in any standard urban area.

ACT government has no jurisdiction over the use of the airport land – it is regulated by the Federal government.

Despite the preponderance of evidence that proves the toxic effects of aircraft engine exhaust on humans the ACT government has allowed the building of Brindabella Park and other buildings adjacent to the Canberra Airport.

I’m pretty sure the main reason for the existence of Brindabella Business Park is that the ACT Govt. had very little say in its construction.

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