A resident captured these images of a Pronto truck emptying its tanker in Kealba. 87870 Picture: CONTRIBUTED
By LAURA WAKELY
A RESIDENT has slammed Barro Group after one of its trucks dumped hundreds of litres of a pressurised liquid onto a road in Kealba.
The resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he witnessed the truck stop on Main Rd East at around 8am on Tuesday 18 September and empty its tanker, which appeared to contain pressurised water, onto the road.
Moments later a car turned into the truck’s path, narrowly avoiding an accident.
The resident said the vehicle was labelled as belonging to Pronto, a company owned by the Barro Group.
A spokesperson from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria said photos of the incident were “alarming” and encouraged residents to report incidents.
“EPA relies on the community to be our eyes and ears, reporting pollution to EPA Pollution Hotline 1300 372 842,” the spokesperson said.
Star contacted Barro Group but received no response.
The resident said the incident was not the only one he had witnessed and that roads were deteriorating in the area thanks to the activity of waste vehicles.
“Even the asphalts turned into a muddy colour,” he said.
He said residents wanted to see an end to Barro operations at the former Kealba quarry site, worried that their suburb would turn into an industrial mess, which he described would be like “another Brooklyn”.
The incident came as EPA released a report on Brooklyn’s dust problems, which found seven roads in the industrial precinct create hundreds of tonnes of airborne dust.
The report found Brooklyn’s top four dust sources are Bunting Rd, with 23 per cent, Somerville Rd west of McDonald with 16 per cent, Somerville Rd east of McDonald with 13 per cent and Francis St accounts for nine per cent.
EPA Metro manager Richard Marks said days with consistent northerly winds and dry weather had led to more instances of poor air quality, but that overall dust levels were getting lower.
He said solutions outlined in the report included sealing roads and verges, regular road cleaning and repairs to degraded roads.
“The study reinforces that this is everyone’s problem, industry and councils have a role to play in ensuring that solutions are put in place to stop the impacts on residents once and for all,” Mr Marks said.
“These roads carry a lot of traffic, but their condition varies, with some areas of degraded bitumen, significant pot holes and poor drainage.”
He said direct regulation had led to improvements from industry and said Brimbank City Council had made a commitment to fix their roads.
The EPA is also supplying council with dust alerts to help them target infrastructure maintenance.
The dust source report can be found on the Brooklyn Industrial Precinct webpage at www.epa.vic.gov.au
