Human cost of log trucks

Murray Lowe has put his Opouteke Rd home on the market because road dust stirred up by logging trucks and trailers is making life a misery for him and his family. Photot / Mike Barrington

Homeschooled kids are exposed to logging truck dust all day and parents fed up with council are selling, says Mike Barrington

Road sealing to reduce the dust nuisance for homes on logging truck routes south-west of Pipiwai is also needed elsewhere - but others trapped in clouds of truck dust must wait at least two or three years for Whangarei District Council help.

The council has approved spending $200,000 a year for the next five years to seal 100m strips in front of houses that are on gravel roads with high levels of heavy vehicle traffic, including forestry logging routes.

Council roading manager Jeff Devine said the first two years of that programme target the Wrights/McCardle Rds route south of Pipiwai and the council had approved spending two years' worth of funding this year to complete all those works before Christmas of this year.

"The next opportunity to undertake dust seals will be in 2017/18," he said.

Fencing contractor David Tribble was unimpressed. With his wife Cathy and their 10 children he lives on Opouteke Rd near Pakotai, 50km north-west of Whangarei. Up to 80 logging truck movements daily cloak their home in dust.

"If the council can seal outside homes and put dust suppressant on roads over at Pipiwai, they should solve our dust problem too," he said.

Electrician Murray Lowe, his wife Tish and their three children live at the intersection of Opouteke and Takitu Rds, so they endure a double dose of dust from logging vehicles on both roads.

Log harvesting wasn't happening when they bought their lifestyle block 14 years ago, but heavy traffic has kept them under a dust cloud since they moved in four years ago.

Both the Tribbles and Lowes homeschool their children, so the youngsters are breathing dusty air all day. Mr Lowe said he and his wife lived in the country to provide their children with a clean environment and as the dust was a major nuisance they had put their home on the market to test the possibility of moving.

A house at the beginning of the unsealed section of Opouteke Rd is vacant because its owners couldn't stand the dust. Northland Regional Council tests on roads south of Pipiwai used by logging trucks included an assessment done near this house which found excessive levels of dust in the air.

About eight other homes situated alongside or very close to Opouteke and Takitu Rds are also severely affected by logging traffic dust. Some of them - such as a group of four at the intersection of Opouteke and Okaharau Rds - would require only about 100m of seal to settle the dust problem for all of them.

Mr Devine said there were about 100 houses on 30 other roads still to be completed on the House Frontage Dust Coat Sealing programme that was identified for roads with high levels of heavy vehicle traffic.

"Opouteke Rd is on that list and it is a road with a high priority with regard to traffic volumes and dust," he said.

The council is expected to say where dust seals will be applied in 2017/18 closer to that date.

Asked the council obligation protect ratepayers from road dust hazards, Mr Devine said there was no no law around this situation for councils at the moment, but the WDC accepted dust could be a health hazard so it was working to reduce dust hazards as quickly as funds become available.