No data for Ballito’s air quality monitoring station

The mix of chemicals, dust, car exhaust fumes, airplane emissions, burning sugarcane and hundreds of other pollutants could be overwhelming the lungs of people living on the North Coast.

While the link between pollution and poor health and mortality has been established globally by the World Health Organisation, data on what we breathe has long been kept a secret, shared only between polluters and regulators.

The installation of a continuous air monitoring station in Ballito at the Enterprise Ilembe offices towards the end of 2018 was welcomed by residents who have complained for years about the air quality, especially during sugar cane burning season.

Salt Rock resident Simon Glaister told the Courier that when his family took a short hiatus to the South of France, his daughter’s respiratory health problems disappeared.

“When we moved back to Ballito she was plagued with the same respiratory issues. We do not know if there is a link between the sugar burning and her health but without the data being made available we will not be able to exclude it. We need data to know what the condition of the air we breathe is like. If this data is not being tracked, how can we know if there is a problem or not?” asked Glaister.

In an interview with the Courier (July 12, 2019) fire protection officer for the North Coast, Peter Harris whose job it is to ensure correct community inclusive farming practices for the the region’s sugarcane burning refuted claims sugar burning was associated with respiratory health problems.

“The Code of Burning Practices was part of an initiative implemented by the industry to promote better management practices with a focus on minimising atmospheric pollution,” said Harris.

Despite the industry’s push back environmental advocates say air pollution threats from burning cane fields are real and deserve more attention.

One of the objectives of setting up the air monitoring stations would be able to reveal whether air pollutants do spike to unacceptable levels during the burning season.

The air station, which joined similar installations in KwaDukuza and Mandeni, is equipped to monitor pollutants that are seen as dangerous to human health, including testing for many of the pollutants generated by burning sugar cane.

The stations collect information on potentially hazardous gases, wind speed and direction, ambient temperature, pressure, humidity and rainfall.

According to the KZN Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) the station would be used to provide a baseline for air quality locally.

However, local environmental activists have claimed that the department has failed to release data from the monitoring station that has been operating for more than a year.

Founder of the Facebook page “Clean Air, Ilembe Region”, Clare Swithenbank-Bowman, said the page was created in response to locals complaining of upper respiratory problems, including sinus, headaches and constant chest infections.

“We need to find the root of the problem and insist on the department doing air quality test controls. Every person has the right to know about the quality of air he or she breathes,” said Swithenbank-Bowman.

Despite numerous requests over the past year, no data has been released by the department, nor have they responded to our request for comment.

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