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or ONLINE at
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*UDIWRQ 6WUHHW :DUZLFN Week commencing Thursday, 1 December | 2016 | Edition 857
Morgan Park’s ’roo risk
10 years for Lisa at SFT
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A bad taste in their mouths: Herbert Street residents, from left, Neil and Michelle Bower, Pat Attard and Gary and Sandy Manson.
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‘Prisoners’
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seven days a week, usually starting up at 6.30am and often continuing well into the night, including Sunday nights. “No word of a lie - I have to keep all the windows and doors shut all day and all night,” she says. “We’re living like prisoners - I have an aircon but it’s at the back of the house and you can’t sit under that all day. “Everything is covered in dust when you do open the door, and the rainwater tanks and solar panels are totally covered. “I am pretty much at the end of my tether.” Neighbour Neil Bower agrees, telling the Free Times the Saturday night just gone was a long one. “I was informed by GrainX at 7pm that we would have to put up with a large generator running until midnight and possibly longer,” he said. “So it was 18 hours of non-stop noise which started at 6.30am. Continued to page 3
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throat irritations consistent with hazard warnings on material safety data sheets on the chemical - and of concerns over the effect of the chemical on their rainwater supplies. Methyl bromide is fatal if swallowed or inhaled directly in a sufficient quantity but there is no current data for health effects associated with long-term inhalation. Workers are required to wear protective clothing while handling methyl bromide, including face and respiratory protection, gloves and body protection. The Free Times visited Herbert Street residents this week and saw first-hand the dust levels on the site - and the layers of black dust on rainwater tanks and roofs at adjacent homes. Pat Attard has lived on Herbert Street for 34 years and is directly opposite the GrainX silos. She says she “never had a problem” with past operators of the site, which had kept reasonable hours in contrast with GrainX which works
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ALLORA residents living across the road from the GrainX Australia grain handling facility have spoken of their lives as virtual “prisoners” in their own homes for the past five years. Dust - including chemical residue - and noise from the site have turned their daily lives into a living hell since the facility was approved by the Southern Downs Regional Council in 2011. Health impacts from chemical use, sleep deprivation, stress and de-valued properties sum up life on Herbert Street and other nearby streets in “The Best Little Town on the Downs”. There also concerns over the well-being of students at Allora State School and residents of The Homestead Southern Cross Care nursing home just a few hundred metres from GrainX on nearby Forde Street. Residents claim the company has been both tardy and has failed to
comply with council directives set down in a resolution in May of this year relating to dust and noise assessments and landscaping requirements, including a five-metre wide foliage strip with mature plantings. But no amount of monitoring which has been commissioned by GrainX itself - and tree planting is likely to counter the effects on the nearby residents of the use of the insecticide methyl bromide to treat pests in grain consignments handled on the GrainX site. Methyl bromide has been all but phased out internationally due to claims over its effects on ozone depletion, but is still approved in Australia and other countries as an agricultural pesticide. Similar grain and produce handling operations overseas, including in the United States, use exhaust ‘scrubbing’ to reduce the toxicity of methyl bromide emissions, but such technology is not currently required in Australia. Residents have told the Free Times of constant eye, skin and
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