The Public Enquiry in to the proposed quarry in Bengeo resumed this morning with questions for the Stop Bengeo Quarry Campaign’s Health Impact Assessment/Air Quality expert Mr Roger Barrowcliffe.
Stop Bengeo Quarry approached numerous experts in this field to represent us but many declined due to the difficulty in winning cases like these on health grounds. Roger has decades of experience in air quality and is currently Vice-Chair of the Institute of Air Quality Management. He agreed that these cases are hard won but felt there were some important uncertainties in the evidence submitted by the appellant to highlight to the inspector. This he did with credibility and clarity during questioning by SBQ’s barrister. The main points covered included the following:
- The reference to “significance” relates to a framework constructed by Ben Cave and is not professionally recognised nationally or internationally at present (though there are some guidelines for doing HIA generally).
- The air quality model submitted by the appellants may have under predicted the levels of particulate matter due to the averaging of the outputs over the whole phase rather than a more realistic workable area such as a hectare. He drew attention to data suggesting that the incremental decrease in air quality at sensitive sites as predicted by the appellants model seemed lower than expected given site-specific observations at quarries (though he conceded this was a small sample)
- The emission rate, a key parameter in the air quality model,is not appropriate for modelling local emissions and the uncertainly was not explored.
- The HIA only gave only cursory consideration of the health effects of decreased air quality on vulnerable subgroups and these should have been explored further.
Roger did well under cross examination, which included some rudimentary calculations by the appellants barrister. The Campaign’s barrister was quick to point out that these weren’t included in the expert reports. For reasons undisclosed, Ben Cave was not recalled by the appellants and therefore much of the discussion has focused on air quality and not the wider health issues.
Later in the day, Prof Sokhi – speaking for the applicant – said that it was important to look at the large data to determine the impact of the quarry on the health of population. He agreed that there is uncertainty in any models for assessing the impact. He told the enquiry that he believes there is no need to consider the hourly short-term peaks of increased concentration of the pollution – and that he believes the approach to considering annual average approach is a better option. However, it was pointed out that WHO and other organisations use the hourly peaks and it is not unusual to do so.
Prof Sokhi accepted that the receptors will be used to alert residents about unacceptable levels of pollution so local residents would be aware when they would need to avoid being outside for periods up to 24hrs. The Campaign’s barrister pointed out this would impact on health quality life style of local population.
Another argument was made by The Campaign – that there is a high level of asthma (46) in the school 340 m away from the proposed quarry cases. Prof Sokhi believes that it is impossible to assess the impact based on small number of population, based on the used methodology.
It was put to him that there are vulnerable groups who would have higher level of exposure to pollution – such as children with asthma, going to Bengeo Primary School, and residents of Bengeo living closely to the quarry would have multiple vulnerability, which has not been taken into account in HIA.
We heard that Prof Sokhi provided his evidence based on the review of Ben Cave’s Health Impact Assessment. He was asked to confirm that the HIA made an assumption that the quarry operator would use brand new equipment (rather than older/well used equipment). It was put forward by The Campaign’s barrister that there was no guarantee by the current applicant or future operators that new equipment would be used.
Based on the HIA Prof Sokhi believes that there is a small risk of health impact “at least on annual basis”. He explained that he is reviewing the data to determine if “the health changes can be contributed as resulting from the quarry”.