ESTABLISHING A HISTORY OF AIR POLLUTION IN NEWCASTLE, NSW Nancy Cushing and Howard Bridgman

School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, Ourimbah, NSW, 2258 School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308

Abstract An understanding of the history of air pollution and its management in a city or region can provide a cultural and scientific basis for future decision making. In Newcastle, NSW, a scientist and a cultural historian have combined to develop a history of air pollution and its management for the Newcastle City Council area (1804 to 2010). Newcastle began its life as a coal mining settlement, and during most of the 19th century, coal mining was the dominant economic activity. With the establishment of the Broken Hill Propriety Limited (BHP) steelworks in 1915, industrial development, centred on steelmaking and associated processing, became dominant. Air pollution, especially smoke, dust and soot, was considered an indication of progress. In the 1940s and early 1950s, residents began to realise that the air pollution was causing major aesthetic and life style problems. The Newcastle City Council was very proactive, and established the first Australian local government monitoring network in 1951. In the following decades, the relationship between air pollution and respiratory health became fully established, resulting in growing requirements to reduce emissions. A major increase in pollution monitoring and the quality of measurements followed two important sources and emissions inventories in the mid-1990s. BHP closed in October, 1999, resulting in a major reduction in air pollution emissions. This presentation will describe preliminary aspects of this research project. Focus will be on atmospheric particles, one of the major pollutants emitted associated with industry, and public perceptions associated with these emissions. Along with post-1951 measurements, sources of information include newspaper reports, council minutes, industrial and mining reports, and so forth. Examples of how these can be used will be presented. Keywords: Newcastle, air pollution, history, perceptions

1. Introduction 1.1. Significance and benefits Newcastle, located north of Sydney on the New South Wales coast, is one of Australia’s oldest cities and its 7th most populous. For much of its long history, it has been identified with the coal which has been mined in large amounts in and around the city. The dust generated as coal was transported through the city to harbour and loaded on ships for export was joined by black smoke when BHP and associated industries located in Newcastle in the early decades of the twentieth

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century. Local concern over this poor air quality made Newcastle the first Australian city in which citizen action led to a local government campaign of air pollution monitoring, education and pressuring enterprises to reduce their emissions. A study of Newcastle’s air pollution and its management over time will provide evidence of responses of Australian cities to the challenge of air quality in the wake of urban growth and industrialisation. Hopefully, it will foster a greater historical grounding of understandings of contemporary air quality issues, demonstrating that joint action over the long term can achieve a dramatic improvement.

1.2. Approach: Science meets cultural history

Air pollution has been studied extensively within the scientific disciplines and to a lesser extent by historians (See Brimblecombe 1987, Thorsheim 2006, Stradling 1999 for examples) However, until recently, there has been “a tendency to separate the scientific understandings of air pollution and the work of monitoring and instrumentation from the embodied experiences of air pollution and the cultural circumstances in which it is situated …”(Cupples et al. 2007). In this project, we aim to address this separation through collaboration between an atmospheric scientist and a cultural historian. Combining our distinctive approaches will lead to a better understanding of the issues surrounding air pollution and its management.

2. Information Sources 2.1. Pollutants The current understanding of the major types and sources of air pollution in urban areas is summarised in the documents behind the National Pollution Inventory (NPI 2010, www.npi.gov.au). For Newcastle, four reports created the background for the NPI: the Coffey report (Coffey 1973); the Kooragang and Inner Newcastle Airshed Study, KINAS (Bridgman et al. 1992), the test analysis for NPI purposes (Boyle et al 1996), and the Metropolitan Air Quality Study (Carnovale et al. 1997). While these reports covered a range of potential pollutants, the three of most importance are particle matter (PM10), sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ), and nitrogen oxides (NO x ). The overall study will focus on all three of these pollutants but for purposes of this paper, the discussion is limited to PM.

in winter become important. By gathering information on how these enterprises functioned and how much coal they consumed, a rough measure of their contribution to air pollution can be made. The NPI provides a series of workbooks which allow estimates of emissions to be made from a range of sources. For purposes of this paper, we take the simplest approach for PM. PM10 = A x EF x C

Where PM10 is the amount of PM10 emitted over time (usually kg per day or year); A is the amount of fuel burned or raw material used; EF is the emission factor assigned to the process; and C is a correction factor (if needed). Depending on the source, the NPI (2010) provides useful tables to estimate the EF for most activities. The following are assumptions made in this analysis: * PM10 represents particle less than 10 μm in diametre, and is not further sub-divided by size; * Emissions focus is on major activities, with small sources, such as fugitive emissions ignored. In an industry, for example, stack emissions are the focus; * Differences within the fuel type are ignored. For example, coal is a generic fuel, with differences between blends not considered. * Where possible, the activity will consider the number of hours the source is in operation, and the kind of product created. 2.2.2. Post-1951 Table 1 Types of air pollution measurements in Newcastle after 1951

2.2. Science and Methodology 2.2.1. Pre-1951 No air pollution monitoring took place in Newcastle prior to 1951. A major element of this project is the attempt to estimate the level of pollutants by working from historical sources with regard to the number and type of sources of emissions active in the city over time. A time line has been developed tracing the establishment of enterprises and functions which produced significant emissions. Major pollution sources of the nineteenth century were the coal mines, the transfer of coal by steam trains to the wharves and the ships which carried coal and other goods in the harbour. The burning of coal for smelting and to generate power for industries also began in this period and was greatly expanded in the twentieth century, as was electricity generation. As population grew, residential emissions from coal burning for heating

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(1)

Source

Time period

Pollutants

NCC

1951-2010

PM (dust)

NCC

1959 – 1987

Acid Gases

Industry

1993 – 2010

PM, SO 2 , NO x

DECC

1996 - 2010

PM, SO 2 , NO x

#

1993 - 2010

PM10, PM2.5

NCC #

plus Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation In 1951, the Newcastle City Council’s (NCC) Health Department began monitoring fallout using dust deposition gauges placed at locations around the city. The number of gauges was increased over time until the early 1990s, when more modern measuring apparatus was installed both by the Council and the NSW State Pollution Control

Commission (SPCC) (later renamed the Environmental Pollution Agency, and the Department of Environment and Climate Change, DECC). The following table lists the types of measurements and nature and extent of data sets available after 1951: 2.2.3 Historical relationships While the data extrapolated from coal burning activity and extracted from pollution monitoring devices contributes to an objective evaluation of the nature and amount of air pollution in Newcastle, it cannot provide a sense of what it was like to live with this pollution or how it was perceived. The cultural context in which this pollution was experienced is central to understanding the timing and targets of anti-pollution measures. Evidence of perceptions of Newcastle’s air quality and what responses were deemed appropriate is to be found in a wide range of written sources. These include published accounts by visitors to Newcastle; news reporting, editorials and letters to the editor in local newspapers and those published in other cities; colonial and state parliamentary debates and government reports; minute books of the Newcastle City Council; annual reports of associations such as the Newcastle Chamber of Commerce; and papers of residents’ groups. Visual images of Newcastle including photographs, sketches, prints and paintings are also very relevant to this topic.

3

Timelines and sources

To make this project manageable it is useful to focus on major developments and time periods in Newcastle’s history. These include development of rail transport from 1857; expansion of coal mining from 1860 to 1880; the beginning of BHP Steel operations in 1915; the impacts of WWI and WWII; and so forth Throughout its history, The main focus of development in Newcastle has been coal mining and transport, and industrial development. For purposes of illustration in this paper, case studies from two periods, the 1880s and the second half of the 1930s, are used (Section 4).

4

Case studies

4.1 The 1880s At the beginning of this decade, Newcastle was described as being “as smoky, dirty and unhealthy as its name-sake”, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north of England. (Fitzgerald 1881). The smoke was generated largely by trains, ships in the harbour and coal mines but secondary industry was also coming to play a larger part in degrading Newcastle’s air quality. Two copper smelters added their burden of coal smoke as did

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engineering works, breweries and William Arnott’s steam biscuit manufactory. Table 2 presents the major sources of PM for this decade. Table 2. Major sources of air pollution during the 1880s (NDA 1881) Coal Mining Up to 16 local pits in operation: ventilating furnaces, stationary engines to lower miners and raise coal; output rose from 1.08 Mt/yr in 1880 to 2.in 1889 (FDN 1901) Rail Transport Engines for coal shipments to port, on Great Northern Railway and numerous private lines Engines for passenger and freight services Shunting activities at port Harbour Activities Shipping (mainly by sail but some steam ships): average 1230 ships/yr Seven steam cranes for loading coal, power house for 8 – 15 hydraulic cranes, export average 1.4 million tons/yr Fifteen steam tugs, lighters, six steam ferries Local Industry & Manufacturing Coke making: Wallsend Purified Coke Company Lime burning, Stockton Two copper smelters (Hunter River Copper Works – 21 furnaces, 5 cycles of smelting; English and Australian Copper Co., Broadmeadow, 12 furnaces) Arnott’s steam biscuit factory Breweries: Castlemaine and Toohey’s Standard Soap and Candle Works (from 1886) Engineering works: JA Rogers and Morrison and Bearby Cordial manufactory: AF Moore Potteries: Moses Hughes and Joseph Bowtell, Merewether Steam saw mills: J. Ash and Son; Laing and Wylie; John Henderson Other City of Newcastle Gas and Coke Company Steam Tramways (from 1887) Residential coal burning Of the list in Table 2, two activities were chosen to illustrate the methodology described in section 2.2.1. All emissions of PM10 are considered to be uncontrolled. 4.1.1 Railway engines

Connections to places outside the Hunter Region did not occur until 1889, so it is assumed that all rail transport was local. Locomotive were operated for three purposes: transport of coal trains to and from the port; transport of passengers and freight, centred around Broadmeadow Station, just west of Newcastle; and shunting activities in the rail yards next to the port. According to estimates by the Australian Railway History Society, a rough average use of coal per engine per day was 5 tonnes (1000 kg). The NPI emissions manual for railway engine boilers lists 3.1 kg/tonne as a size correction factor for PM10 from burning raw coal. Over 24 hours, an estimate of locomotives in continuous use could be 100. Therefore, using Eq 1 and incorporating the number of engines: E (PM10) = 100 x 5 x 3.1 = 1550 kg/day 4.1.2 Copper Smelting According to the NPI manual for copper smelting, a worst case uncontrolled emission scenario means a PM15 (assumed PM10) Emissions Factor of 70 kg per tonne of processed ore. The Manual includes and emissions control factor, which for this calculation is removed by dividing the EF by 0.40. According to NCC (1888), the amount of copper produced between 1885 and 1887 averaged 2750 tonnes per year: E(PM10)= (2750 x 70)/0.40 x 365 days = 1319 kg/day.

4.1.3 Impacts and Reactions Extrapolating from the figures above, it is evident that Newcastle experienced significant fallout before the establishment of heavy industry. Residents were generally tolerant of the smokefilled air, being both accustomed to it and seeing it as a necessary side effect of the coal mining, coal export and fledgling processing industries which provided the economic foundation of the city. When locals raised the issue of air quality, their concerns were not with health or aesthetics but with concrete difficulties, including the obscuring of the light from Nobby’s lighthouse at the harbour entrance, damage to buildings and signs in city streets and the soiling of homes and offices with coal dust. The colonial Nuisance Prevention Act came into effect in 1889. Under this act, Novocastrians complained to the Council about smoke generated by public institutions, the electric light works (opened in 1890), various small businesses, railway workshop, trains, trams and the sole surviving urban coal mine. The response was limited. Councils had been empowered to levy fines against

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offenders but rarely did. While smoke was an annoyance, from the perspective of health, impure water and food were much more immediate concerns. It was not surprising that an official guide book to NSW published in 1886 declared Newcastle to be the “City of Coals.” (Myers 1886)

4.2

The 1930s

By the 1930s, the issue of air quality in Newcastle had reached a new pitch. Coal mining was no longer conducted in the city proper although coal was still carried from more distant mines along the numerous rail lines to harbourside loading berths. Since its opening in 1915, the BHP steelworks had been the greatest contributor to air pollution along with the many industries which co-located in Newcastle to further process the steel or to take advantage of the industrial opportunities the city provided. The employment and national importance which accompanied heavy industrialisation were welcome but more voices began to suggest that this should be achievable without the accompanying pall of smoke. Table 3 presents the major sources of PM for this period. Table 3. Major sources of air pollution during the 1930s Industry BHP Pty Ltd (13 furnaces) Commonwealth Steel Stewart and Lloyds Ryland Brothers Lysaghts Newbolds General Refractories Australian Wire Rope Goninans Morison & Bearby J.A. Brown Armstrong & Royce Power Stations Zaara Street Waste Incinerators Waratah Newcastle Municipal Incinerator (Current No2 Sports Ground) Railways Coal Transport Engines Passenger Engines Shunting Engines Railway Workshops Shipping & Harbour

Coal transport steam ships Other steam ships (grain, 15% diesel fuel) Steam cranes Coal loading processes Tug Boats, Ferry and other harbour boats Residential Wintertime burning of coal for heating As for the 1880s, two activities were chosen from Table 3 to illustrate the process. These were Zaara Street power station, and BHP Steel Works. 4.2.1 Zaara Street power station First opened in 1922, the Zaara Street power station, located at the east end of Newcastle, provided electric power for the city, trams and also for dockside activities, such as steam cranes. Fetscher (2002) provides a useful summary of the history of this activity. Up until 1939, the power station burned raw coal without any kind of control measures for air pollution. The PM emissions were a constant annoyance to residents, and the company and the Council received complaints on a regular basis. In 1939, the company made an attempt to control large particle emissions through the use of “grit arrestors” but claimed they did not have the technology to reduce finer particle emissions. The station was closed in 1960, but occasionally was used to meet power demand until 1975. In the late 1930s, annual power output averaged about 120 millon KWh, burning 110,062 tonnes of coal (Fetscher 2002). Using a PM10 emissions factor of 3.10 kg per tonne of coal, and allowing a 0.96 correction for grit removal (NPI Boiler Manual), annual emissions were approximately: E(PM10) = (110062 x 3.10 x 0.96)/365 = 897 kg/day 4.2.2 BHP Iron and Steel According to NCC (1937), BHP production consisted of three main items, coke (301,588 tonnes), pig iron (337,314 tonnes), and steel ingots 378,417 tonnes). Using the NPI workbook for manufacturing, which allows estimates of PM10 emissions per tonne of product, and assuming worst case conditions: For coke: (301558 x 0.20)/365 = 165 kg/day For steel: (378417 x 11.02)/365 = 11,404 kg/day For pig iron: (337417 x 39.5)/365 = 36,504 kg/day

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The total PM10 from these three activities is 48,073 kg/day

4.3 Impacts and Reactions The calculations in Section 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 have not yet been verified. However, it is interesting to compare them to modern emissions. The current NPI results for Newcastle (2008/2009) indicate that about 2710 kg or PM10 is emitted per day over the city. Such emissions (ca 3000kg PM10/day) are broadly similar to those for the two sources for the 1880s, and considerably less from BHP (ca 48,000kg PM10/day) during the 1930s. The results also provide an idea about what Newcastle residents had to contend with in terms of air pollution during these periods. Individuals and groups formed deputations and paid visits to the managers of the various works (SN 1938). Their complaints about smoke largely related to its visual presence, but also to the property damage it caused, such as the deterioration of painted surfaces. At the city-wide level, many public pronouncements focused on outside perceptions of Newcastle as a polluted place. Being a city of “coal dust, smoke and grime" was seen as harmful for Newcastle’s reputation and future possibilities. (NMH 1932). The Council began to take action, opening a Tourist and Publicity Bureau in 1934 and creating a Beautification Advisory Committee to lead efforts to improve the appearance of the city. Many of these actions relied on a strategy of denying or drawing attention away from air pollution rather than reducing it, but petitions to the Council about the “discomfort” caused by smoke did lead to investigations in the late 1930s (NMH 1938). The issue of health impacts of air pollution was beginning to be taken seriously. The person charged with protecting the health of Novocastrians in this period was J.C. Meddows, the Health Inspector for Newcastle Council. He identified the primary causes of air pollution as the burning of coal, fumes from petrol powered vehicles, heavy oil engines, grit and dirt from chimneys and fumes from trade processes. Meddows could initiate prosecution of polluters if their smoke was deemed a public nuisance although there was uncertainty about how this was defined. Although Newcastle City Council sought greater powers over polluters,, there was a view within the Council that persuasion was preferable to compulsion. Avoiding negative economic outcomes was paramount. One eventuality which the Council feared was the widespread adoption of oil as a fuel, an outcome which was “most undesirable in a coal-producing district”. Indeed, there was a sense that it might be wise for the coal

companies themselves to develop smoke reducing technologies which they could make available to their larger customers. Although individual citizens and the council deplored the smoke, concern that smoke abatement would threaten their economic future limited the scope of efforts to reduce air pollution.

5 Summary and Discussion This presentation illustrates a methodology which can lead to a comparison of air quality problems during different historical periods, with PM10 used as an example. Very preliminary results suggest that Newcastle deserved its reputation as a dirty city, with BHP by the 1930s being the major source of PM10. Through bringing about recognition of the diseconomies associated with the emission of polluting particles and gases, residents, the Council, and other lobbyists in Newcastle were eventually able to secure effective government regulation which has resulted in a vast improvement in air quality. This process can serve as a parallel to the current challenge of bringing about the recognition and then the limitation of greenhouse gas emissions, offering important lessons about the key factors bringing about the desired outcome. A directed study of one city can help to answer questions about the nature and extent of air pollution around Australia, through the various periods of Australia’s industrial development. A combination of pollution science with cultural/historical perceptions provides a much broader understanding than from either area alone. Newcastle became stereotyped as a polluted city because of the ready supply of coal and the intensity of its use there, but other Australian cities have suffered similarly from endemic air quality issues. Also the utilisation of wood, coal, gas and gaseous petroleum fuels for electricity production, industry, transportation, public services and domestic purposes have been a feature of modernising Australia, yet necessarily may still involve the discharge to air of unwanted byproducts. With its long-term air pollution, ample written and visual records and over sixty years of air pollution monitoring, Newcastle’s experience of air pollution and its management is not only of historical interest but also holds the promise of insights which can be applied elsewhere in the present and future.

Acknowledgments

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We would like to thank the University of Newcastle Division of History for some financial support, and Wendy Alexander for researching sources of information.

References Bridgman, H., Manins, P., and Whitelock, B. 1992, Assessment of Cumulative Emissions of Air Pollution from Kooragang Island and the Inner Suburbs of Newcastle, a report submitted to the NSW Department of State Development, TUNRA, The University of Newcastle, June. Boyle, R., Dewundege, P., Hazi, J., Hearn, D., McIntosh, C., Morrell, A., Ng, Y., and Serebryanikova, R. 1996, Report on the Air Emissions trials for the National Pollution Inventory, Environment Protection Authority, Melbourne. Brimblecombe, P. 1987, Big Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in London since Medieval Times, Methuen, New York. Carnovale, F., Tilley, K., Stuart, A., Carvalho, C. Summers, M., and Erikson, P.1997, Metropolitan Air Quality Study Air Emissions Inventory, NSW Environmental Protection Authority, Sydney. Coffey,E. 1973, Inquiry into Pollution Kooragang Island Report and Findings of the Commissioner, Report to the NSW Minister for Environmental Control, 72 pp. Cupples, J., Guyatt, V. and Pearce, J. 2007, ‘”Put on a jacket, you wuss”: Cultural identities, home heating, and air pollution in Christchurch, New Zealand”, Environment and Planning A 39 (12) 2883–2898.  Federal Directory of Newcastle, and District for 1901 1981, Davies and Cannington, Lake Macquarie, NSW, Fetscher. M. 2002, ‘Zaara Street Power Station’, Chapter 3 in The Power Stations of the N.S.W.G.R.,M. Fetscher, Lake Macquarie, NSW, pp. 55-88 Myers, F. 1886 The Coastal Scenery, Harbours, Mountains, and Rivers of New South Wales. Prepared for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition. Government Printer, Sydney. Newcastle Chamber of Commerce 1889, Third Annual Report, 31 December 1888, The Chamber, Newcastle. Newcastle Chamber of Commerce 1937, The FiftyFirst Annual report of the Newcastle, N.S.W. Chamber of Commerce, Newcastle, May. NMH 1932, Newcastle Morning Herald, 7 January. NPI 2010, ‘National Pollution Inventory Workbooks for Iron and Steel Industries, Copper Smelting, Locomotive Boiler Engines’, National Pollution Inventory, www.npi.gov.au.

SN 1938a, ‘Smoke Nuisance, Amendment of the Ordinance Urged, Mayfield West Works, Debate by Health Committee’, Newcastle Morning Herald, 26 May, p 11. SN 1938b, ‘Smoke Nuisance, Mayer Interviews Works Managements, Complaints from Mayfield West’ Newcastle Morning Herald, 30 November, p 8. Stradling, D. 1999, Smokestacks and Progressives: Environmentalists, Engineers and Air Quality in America, 1881-1951, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. Thorsheim, P. 2006, Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain since 1800; Ohio University Press, Athens.

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