‘So thick you could taste it:’ QEW street sweepers blanket beach strip homes with black dust
Shannon Ronald called 911 when black smoke started billowing over the noise wall separating her beach strip home from the QEW.
My first thought was a truck had burst into flames on the highway, that's how thick the smoke was," said Ronald, who ordered her kids inside Monday evening as dark clouds floated over the wall and all the way to Beach Boulevard.
A bemused fire official called back to say nothing was ablaze on the highway, so Ronald's husband jumped in the car to investigate. He found two street sweepers in the middle of a dust storm" near the Burlington Skyway.
They were pushing all that crap off the highway - right over the sound barriers and onto our homes," said Ronald, who posted video online of dust swirling over the wall to settle on her lawn furniture, plants, boat and car. It was so thick you could taste it."
In addition to mistaken calls to the fire department, the dust bomb spurred complaints to the city, provincial pollution hotline and local MPP.
The dust was caused by crews sweeping the area in advance of summer construction on the Burlington Skyway, said the provincial Ministry of Transportation in an email. It said water is used to reduce the amount of dust produced by sweeping."
The email did not specify if the MTO considered the cloud that enveloped beach strip residents Friday inappropriate or out of the ordinary - but it did warn additional sweeping may be required" later this summer.
Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MPP Paul Miller fielded several complaints from residents and told them to report the dust plume as an air pollution spill" to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks.
From the video it looked pretty bad ... It was not well-handled," said Miller of the NDP, who also suggested residents would be within their rights" to demand the province or its contractor clean up their homes.
Spokesperson Jennifer Hall confirmed Ontario's environmental regulator is looking into a complaint about the dust-up. We are following up with the Ministry of Transportation to ensure appropriate street-cleaning equipment that captures dust ... is being used," she said.
Highway pollution and industrial fallout are not new" problems for Ronald, who has lived for 11 years on the beach strip parallel to the QEW, east of the skyway. Just living here, I know what we're breathing. But this was beyond anything I've ever seen before, or anything that we should have to deal with."
Mobile air-quality monitoring has found the highest air pollution levels in Hamilton lurk along highways like the QEW and Highway 403, with nearby residents facing increased mortality risk along the busy corridors.
In addition to lung-busting diesel truck exhaust, highways also accumulate metallic brake dust that can be inhaled as fine particulate that is linked to increased risk of cancer.
Some studies have found noise barriers help reduce the impact of vehicle pollution on near-highway neighbourhoods.
But in this case, the sweepers effectively catapulted this stuff over the barriers," said Environment Hamilton head Lynda Lukasik, who called the pollutant clouds gross and totally avoidable."
When you do it right, if you're equipment is properly maintained and you're using the right amount of water, street-sweeping is absolutely a good thing," said Lukasik, who has complained in the past about rogue sweeper clouds on residential streets.
It's not supposed to make the air pollution worse."
Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com