Last week’s announcement by the NSW government to replace unflued gas heaters in schools with flued gas heaters, only when the majority of heaters in a school reach the end of their serviceable life, does little to alleviate the immediate concerns of parents in Armidale and surrounds, who have contacted Member for Northern Tablelands, Richard Torbay, with fears for their children’s health.
Mr Torbay believes schools in the coldest areas of the state should be exempt from the crackdown on replacing unflued gas heaters.
“It is a matter of great concern to school communities in the Northern Tablelands and quite unfair that young people with respiratory conditions should be exposed to risk because of faulty government equipment,” he said.
“Better policy would be to make it a staged programme, first targeting schools with students most at risk from emissions and where recommended safety measures could not be applied, Mr Torbay said.
“That is certainly the position in the Northern Tablelands with its extreme winter climate where it is out of the question to leave windows open to create cross draughts.
“It defeats the purpose of having heaters, particularly when temperatures reach such low levels between April and October.”
To date, nine schools in the region have had their unflued gas heaters replaced with flued gas heaters, however no schools within Armidale were identified under the 101 schools programme by the previous NSW government.
The programme, with only 15 million dollars to spend, prioritised schools in the coldest regions of the state based on their inability to follow the guidelines on adequate ventilation for unflued gas heaters while trying to keep the room warm. The Bureau of Meteorology was consulted to establish the priority list.
Concerned local parent, Sally Denyer, whose son attends a local Armidale school and is plagued with respiratory conditions, became aware of the health risk of unflued gas heater emissions around 12 years ago when she heard a World Health Organisation warning.
“And more recently, two years ago when my son started at a school with unflued gas heating, he began to be uncharacteristically unwell,” she said.
“In two years he has missed more than 10 weeks of school due to respiratory illness and I took him out for one term in those two years.
“I am going through the process of getting medical reports to support the letter I have written to my son’s school with my concerns.”
The decision by the NSW government was based on findings released by the Environmental Health Risk Assessment of School Heating Options report, commissioned by the former Labor government last year, which concluded that unflued gas heaters in schools do not need to be replaced. However the Woolcok Study report in 2010, sponsored by the then NSW government, found “Seeking alternative, effective and efficient sources of domestic and public space heating that does not have adverse effects on health is important’.
The Campaign opposing Unflued Gas Heaters (COUGH), believes that these Woolcok report findings were in fact conservative as the winter was very mild and the heaters tested were in use much less frequently and for shorter durations than in a normal winter.
Mr Torbay has written to the Education Minister asking for a meeting to discuss the issue.
“I will be putting to him that prioritising unflued gas heater replacement to target the most vulnerable schools is preferable to putting the whole programme on the backburner,” he said.
Story: Jo Harrison
