The major outcome of the seminar was broad agreement that more was needed to be done about increasing awareness diesel particulates (dp) in the industry.

While US health organization EPA last year declared dp a carcinogen, much uncertainty about levels of exposure still persisted. Until this was clear, Ron Stothard said in the interim dp should be treated like passive smoking. Stothard said the NSW Department of Mineral Resources had a responsibility to formulate appropriate regulations.

Consultant Alan Rogers said an exposure standard needed to be developed but this was years away and progress was slow.

Coal mines were advised to develop management plans for dp and communicate these to workers.

The use of alternative fuels to reduce dp emissions was discussed with some participants saying they were not the answer because of concerns about toxicity and additives. One problem is that some alternative fuels can alter the settings on machines and this needed to be quantified.

Trials of Shell’s aqua-diesel fuel reduced dp emissions by 50% with a 500 ppm sulphur fuel but there was a 10% loss of horsepower at peak load.

Forum facilitator, Jim Knowles said everyone has a duty of care towards dp exposure and that it needed to be understood and managed. A total package was needed to address exposure and a management plan was needed to implement change.

All presentations will be published on the Coal Services web site (www.coalservices.com.au) by May 19.