A faulty piece of air monitoring equipment has highlighted serious flaws in the Environment Protection Authority’s pollution alert system in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
The EPA increased its air monitoring around the Morwell coal mine and township after last year’s disastrous fire that poured smoke and ash over the Latrobe Valley for more than a month.
It stepped up its reporting system by using detailed charts on the EPA website that allow the public to monitor air pollution levels at a number of locations.
The higher the number shown on its Air Quality Index, the worse the air quality in the area is.
Early on Monday morning, a public holiday in Victoria, the charts started to track a sharp increase on the index and peaked 24 hours later at a similar figure to those recorded at the height of the mine fire.
At the time of the fire, the air quality triggered a warning from the Victorian Government for people to leave the town.
A series of notices were posted on social media warning of the alarmingly high pollution readings, but the EPA was not aware of the problem until the ABC contacted them.
The EPA’s senior applied scientist Paul Torre said the high readings may have been caused by a technical glitch with the monitor.
“Unfortunately we think from about five o’clock yesterday the instrument seems to have been not performing properly,” Dr Torre said.
“We think what’s happened is that there’s a valve that comes on and off for the nightly calibration of the gas standard and we think that’s stuck and we think there’s a problem with the monitor.”
EPA sorry for delayed response to index rise
When asked why there was a 24-hour period between the initial high readings and any action by the EPA, Dr Torre apologised for the delay.
“It’s taken us a bit of time to go in remotely and try to determine that,” he said.
He said the EPA did not receive any notice of the high readings until this morning and would investigate solutions to the problem.
“I think we could try to work out a remote type of check or alarm that could be sent remotely that would activate people to put them on alert and get some confirmation,” he said.
At the same time, there were conflicting statements about the reporting of a so-called fire hotspot in a disused section of the Yallourn coal mine in the past two days.
The fire in a section of coal face was declared under control, but was still burning on Tuesday morning.
The owners of the Yallourn mine, Energy Australia, said it contacted the Country Fire Authority about the fire when it was detected on Monday, but fire authorities said it was only reported early on Tuesday.
The CFA’s Peter Lockwood said crews would continue to work on the fire over next few days with large firefighting monitors, bulldozers and possibly helicopters later this week.