SINGLETON PM10 readings exceeded national health standards for the first time at midnight on Tuesday.
The 24 average rolling reading for the 7am to 8am period was 111 (very poor) and was above that of any other reading on the Department of Environment Climate Change and Water’s (DECCW) Air quality index (AQI), including Sydney.
Since Monday Singleton has been oscillating between the fair and poor range and yesterday morning returned to ‘good’.
This is the first exceedence since the air quality monitor went live in December last year.
For those who are subscribed to the email or SMS alert system, they would have been notified of the warning that ‘people with heart or lung disease should limit exercising outdoors’.
Those who do not, would not have known.
In that same hourly update the PM2.5 reading in Singleton, while still in the good range, was double that of Muswellbrook’s PM10.
A DECCW spokesperson said the hot weather has resulted in poor air quality for ozone (photochemical smog) in Sydney and the Illawarra and for particles (as PM10) in Sydney, the Illawarra and the lower Hunter.
“We would expect that during hot, dry weather and strong winds from the north west, that Singleton would experience higher levels of particle pollution from time to time,” the spokesperson said.
It is also not going to be the last time it happens with the department saying they would expect that during hot, dry weather and strong winds from the north west, that Singleton would experience higher levels of particle pollution from time to time, as occurs in other areas of the state.
Singleton Shire Healthy Environment Group member Dr John Drinan said one of the most alarming things about the exceedence is that the majority of the Singleton public would have been unaware of the issue.
Dr Drinan said it is important that DECCW let people know of these exceedences and as many people in the outlying areas of Singleton do not have good internet connections it is difficult for them to be able to navigate the website alerts.
They need to consider putting an alert on local radio and if this is to be an anticipated exceedence because of the weather people need to be notified, he told The Singleton Argus yesterday.
Dr Drinan said there is a number of issues that DECCW needs to look at about the exceedence including where the wind was coming from, which communities were most affected, which people are most at risk, which mine was responsible or if it was all of them and what DECCW is going to do about it.
We still have the issue with no agreement by all government of a national standard of PM2.5, he said.
We are still pressing for hour by hour figures and as far as the group is concerned the monitor will never be satisfactory until we have that. There is still a fair bit of ground to cover.
Dr Drinan said it is now also a matter of what DECCW is going to do with the data for those who have health concerns in Singleton.
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