M5 East Tunnel Air Filtration Plant

Ms CHERIE BURTON (Kogarah) [5.50 p.m.]: Tonight I give the House an update on the M5 East tunnel air filtration plant. It gives me great pleasure to inform the House that construction of Australia's first tunnel air filtration plant is progressing extremely well. A 100-tonne road header started tunnelling work in February this year and so far more than 42 metres of tunnelling has been carried out, with another 238 metres due to be finished by late May. This plant is the first of its kind in Australia and is part of the New South Wales Government's air quality improvement plan for the M5 East. Commitments delivered to the M5 East Tunnel to date include the installation of an additional 12 jet fans to improve ventilation flows and a video detection system for illegal smoky trucks, with operators facing fines starting at $200 for individuals and $400 for companies if they fail to fix their trucks, and fines of up to $22,000 and $44,000 respectively for repeat offenders.

This detection system became operational in June 2006 and I am advised that more than 250 instances of polluting heavy vehicles have been referred to the Department of Environment and Climate Change since January 2007. The tunnel air filtration plant is the third commitment of the New South Wales Government's air quality improvement plan for the M5 East and once operational a revised ventilation strategy for the tunnel will be implemented. Construction of the M5 East Tunnel air filtration plant has created more than 300 jobs—an important feature in the current economic climate. An additional 200 jobs will be created as work progresses. This world-class air filtration plant will filter the air inside the M5 East westbound tunnel around 500 metres from the tunnel exit. The plant will extract around 50 per cent of air from the tunnel and inject filtered air back into the same location, helping to remove particulate matter, which produces haze in the tunnel. Construction of the air filtration plant is on track and on time to be finished at the end of this year.

At the moment the roof of the ventilation building is being assembled and 24-hour tunnelling is about to begin. So far, tunnelling has been carried out during standard work hours because it is near the surface, but tunnelling will soon progress enough for 24-hour tunnelling to take place at the end of March. This is great news as it brings us a step closer to delivering this $65 million state-of-the-art filtration plant. Last month the subcontract for the design, manufacture, supply, installation and commissioning of the filtration and ventilation equipment was finalised, and the filtration and ventilation system is currently undergoing a detailed design process. Once the plant is commissioned, electrostatic precipitators will be in place to remove particulate matter such as dust, soot and other tiny bits of material, mostly emitted from vehicle exhausts. There will also be a denitrification unit to remove nitrogen dioxide from the tunnel.

This financial year the New South Wales Government has provided $40 million to continue construction of Australia's first air filtration plant. I take this opportunity to thank Mark Curran from Remote Area Power Supply, Tony Duffy from Kingsgrove and all the constituents who have supported me in lobbying extremely hard to get this project underway to make sure that the air quality in the M5 East Tunnel is the best it can be. The community has been very concerned about this issue over the past few years and it is a great win for us that we will get Australia's first air filtration plant. I look forward to keeping the House updated on this important project as it progresses.