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The NIE is located approximately 35 kilometres north of Brisbane near the residential areas of Narangba, Deception Bay and North Lakes in the Moreton Bay Regional Council area.
The industrial estate provides for both local and regional industry and contains in excess of 74 businesses. The estate is approximately 180 hectares and is divided by the Bruce Highway.
The estate contains a wide variety of industries including:
The industrial estate provides for both local and regional industry including:
Premises used for industrial activities which have negligible impacts on surrounding non-industrial uses.
Premises used for industrial activities that have offsite air, noise and odour emissions.
Premises used for industrial activities that have significant offsite impacts on non-industrial uses including air, noise or odour emissions that are not easily controlled or contained.
Premises used for industrial activities that have the potential for extreme, adverse impacts on other land uses. This includes the potential for fire, explosion or toxic release.
Industry is subjected to regulations outlined in the following legislation:
Health Impact Assessment is a method used throughout the world to estimate both the positive and negative effects on the health of a certain population under specific conditions at a specific time. The level of assessment can vary from relatively simple to very comprehensive depending on the situation. The Narangba HIA is a comprehensive study and required the input of different professionals with considerable levels of expertise.
HIA includes the following steps:
The community raised concerns about whether the operations of the industrial estate had the potential to impact on their health and well-being and that of the rapidly expanding population in the area surrounding the estate. The project was established to gain a better understanding of air quality in the area and to identify any potentially associated risk to health.
What did the study involve?
The assessment focussed on key concerns raised by community reference group members including:
The assessment focussed on key concerns raised by community reference group members including:
The outcomes sought were two-fold, including to:
In response to concerns around the estate the Queensland Government established a community reference group (CRG)-comprising local community representatives and government agencies-to oversee the completion of a study into potential health risks and land concerns for residents living near the estate, and to make recommendations to government.
The information was collected and analysed by independent experts, with support provided to the community reference group by an independent technical advisor and independent facilitator. This approach was used to ensure fairness, transparency and measureable outcomes.
The Community Reference Group was concerned that the results could be misinterpreted and cause unnecessary anxiety of community members.
Data that has been sampled at a source, does not represent the concentration that the community would be exposed to as factors such as dilution, air mixing, duration of exposure, frequency and consistency of exposure are, factors etc all factors that …need to be considered.
Sampling results or analysis reports such as those that have been generated through the various monitoring programs are technical reports and do not provide interpretation around what the results mean. Technical reports of this nature typically contain information such as sampling sample site details, test methods, measurement uncertainty, sample numbers, concentration etc.…
The CRG decided to not release any of the data collected until the completion of the study.
No. The health impact assessment will not be able to prove a causal link between any health symptoms and the industrial estate for reasons linked to the many factors that determine a person’s health.
There are many factors and conditions that influence health - these are referred to as the determinants of health (Table 1)1. Some of these factors can be controlled by individuals e.g. smoking, while others may be beyond the control of an individual or population e.g. climate change, air quality or genetics. Anything that alters one of these factors may result in an impact on health (positive or negative). Those factors that have the ability to produce a negative effect on health are known as hazards and in an HIA it is often easier and more accurate to measure the hazard directly, rather than measure ill health due to the wide range of variables that have to be considered.
Table 1: Examples of determinants of health|
Fixed |
Social and Economic |
Lifestyle and Behaviours | Access to Services | Environment |
|
|
||||
| Genes | Poverty | Diet | Education | Air quality |
| Employment | Physical activity | Health services | Noise | |
| Ageing | Social exclusion | Alcohol | Social services | Housing |
| Community structure and infrastructure | Sexual behaviour | Transport | Water quality | |
| Drugs | Leisure | Social environment | ||
| Coping skills | Risk of injury | |||
| Smoking | Sun exposure | |||
| Disease vectors eg. mosquitoes | ||||
HIAs can also consider matters such as demographic and health data, special populations, and environmental, social and economic impacts where appropriate, in order to provide a more balanced approach when considering human health impacts.
The community reference group determined that based on the location of the industrial estate and limited opportunity for exposure through other environmental factors, the main environmental hazard to be assessed through the HIA would be air quality.
The community reference group did not determine ground water quality to be a major issue as community exposure is very limited.
There are different methods that can be used to predict air quality. A number of different internationally accepted methods were used for this project. The project is using direct measurement and modelling to support the assessment of air quality. There are a number of different methods to measure any given pollutant, varying in complexity, reliability, and detail of data. These range from simple passive sampling techniques to highly sophisticated sampling processes.
Not everything in the air is at a level that represents a risk to human health. There are chemicals that, at concentrated levels in an enclosed space, may affect a person’s health, but when dispersed in the atmosphere have little or no measurable impact. Whether or not this is the case is decided by comparing the concentrations and the length of time of exposure with toxicological standards.
Different types of monitoring have been done and include:
• Ambient air monitoring which is the systematic, assessment of pollutant levels by measuring the quantity and types of certain pollutants in the surrounding, outdoor air; and
• Emissions monitoring which is the process of monitoring particulate and gaseous emissions from a specific source such as a stack or a pond.
This monitoring is carried out to assess the extent of pollution in the area, provide information for validation of modelling and to assist in determining the most appropriate methodology for the monitoring strategy.
To measure both the type and quantity of contaminants being released from sites to provide data for input to the modelling process which will enable a health appraisal at community based sites.
Ambient monitoring gives us data on concentrations at a limited number of sites for specific time periods. It is just not possible to measure concentrations of substances at all parts of the region, and it is not possible to know ahead of time that the sites selected will correspond with highest concentrations. A combination of a meteorological model of winds in the region with the emissions for the sources in the region will allow us to estimate the concentrations of the substances in the parts of the region and in the time periods in which it was not possible to make ambient measurements.
Requirements for air monitoring vary depending on the purpose for monitoring, what is being measured and how it is being measured. Basic site considerations include site location, site security, main power access, site access, surrounding vegetation and location of major sources of extraneous emissions e.g. roads. Other sampling considerations include processing capacity at time of sampling, type of processes being conducted during sampling and weather.
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