West Gate Tunnel
Residents exposed to toxic fumes
Melbourne's new West Gate tunnel is currently under construction. By the end of 2025, the four-kilometre tunnel is predicted to carry some 70,000 vehicles a day.
Two giant ventilation stacks will pump highly toxic fumes out from the tunnel – yet there's no plan to add air pollution filtration systems to the chimneys, meaning these vehicle emissions – including PM 2.5 particles and exhaust fumes – will be pumped across nearby homes, sport fields and parks.
Breathing in even small amounts of these air pollutants can cause serious health issues like childhood asthma, strokes, lung cancer and heart disease. Countries like Norway, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Austria, Italy, Germany, South Korea and Spain have have air pollution filters installed on tunnels.
But not on Melbourne's newest $10 billion toll road.
That's why EJA lawyers are helping residents in Melbourne's western suburbs make a last-ditch legal plea to the state’s environment watchdog, urging the Victorian government to retrofit pollution filters.
In a push to get pollution filters retrofitted to the two ventilation stacks, members of the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group (MTAG), through lawyers at Environmental Justice Australia, have sent an urgent legal request to the EPA, asking it to consult further with residents.
The municipality of Maribyrnong has some of Victoria’s worst health statistics
Around 40 per cent higher than average for many diseases, and its rates of illness and hospitalisation due to air pollution exceed the Australian average.
Yarraville resident and parent Glen Yates lives about a kilometre from the southern ventilation stack. (One stack will sit above the northern tunnel entrance near the Maribyrnong River and the other above the southern tunnel portal in the West Gate Freeway).
Yates’ family moved to the suburb more than a decade ago, and he now suffers from respiratory issues like asthma and has experienced blood clots in his lungs. His family uses five air filtration units in their home to clean the air.
"When the project opens, a quarter of the vehicles using the bridge will start using the tunnel. Depending on which way the wind blows, we’re going to get unfiltered exhaust emissions from one stack or the other. Some days – we’ll get both.
When it rains any pollution drops straight onto our homes. It’s falling onto my kids’ clothes on the washing line. I worry about my family’s health."
— Glen Yates, Yarraville resident
Yates has installed a network of tiny air-quality monitoring stations (about half the size of a can) on six houses in the local area. On some days they have shown very high levels of PM2.5s that exceed the World Health Organisation guidelines, he says.
It's time to listen to residents
Members of the community, including MTAG, remain worried about the risks of air pollution from the tunnel, and want to have their interests considered.
Transurban will soon lodge an application for an operating licence for the ventilation systems and in MTAG’s legal letter the group called on the EPA to use its discretionary powers and call a ‘Conference of Interested Parties’ so that community groups can have input into the licence conditions.
“The West Gate Tunnel removing trucks from local roads is very welcome, but not filtering the vent stacks is a lost opportunity to reduce pollution in a heavily polluted community.
Martin Wurt, Maribyrnong Track Action Group President
Diesel pollution in the inner west is a clear example of environmental injustice. Filtration is an opportunity to address this and protect our health.
The Government promises to retrofit filtration in the future ‘if it’s needed’ but our community has some of the highest hospital admission rates for air pollution-related illnesses in Victoria. Filtration is needed now!”
“Communities in the inner west already suffer from a disproportionate air pollution burden from multiple sources. The EPA must take that into account.
— Elke Nicholson, Environmental Justice Australia Senior Lawyer
It’s not appropriate for the EPA to rely on consultations done seven years ago under entirely different legislation. The current laws require more rigor from the EPA. We also know much more about the damaging health impacts of air pollution now.
Hearing from concerned residents would be consistent with the EPA’s obligations to engage constructively and transparently with affected communities.
If the EPA approves operation of the tunnel ventilation systems without engaging with the communities that will be most impacted, it would be an absolute failure to consider their needs and to acknowledge the significant air pollution they are already dealing with.”
Pollution in the West – a growing concern
The West Gate Tunnel project attracted more than 500 community submissions before it was approved, of which 460 were opposed to the project. Many raised concerns about air quality monitoring and the impacts on human health from poor air quality.
When the tunnel was initially approved, the advisory committee recommended installation of air pollution control in the tunnel ventilation systems. It also recommended pollution control equipment be installed on the tunnel ventilation system. This has not happened.
Instead, when the EPA gave its approval for road tunnel ventilation systems in 2017, it did not insist on air filtration systems at the outset, but only that the tunnel ventilation system plans show ‘conceptual provision for future pollution control equipment’.
Since the EPA’s approval, Victoria’s environmental laws have been replaced with a new scheme focussed on preventing – rather than responding to – harm.
There is also evidence that the modelling used to predict the health impacts of air pollution from the project may have significantly underestimated the detriment to the local community, particularly the increased risks of childhood asthma.
Concerns about emissions from the tunnel ventilation towers are only one example of concerns about pollution in Melbourne’s west. Residents have also accused the environmental watchdog and the state government of ignoring the problems that regular toxic industrial fires cause in the area.
A health emergency
Maribyrnong City Council declared a health emergency in its municipality in 2023 – citing the impacts of air and noise pollution from heavy trucks using local roads.
The City of Maribyrnong has an adolescent asthma rate 50 per cent higher than the state average. Maribyrnong’s hospital admission rate is more than 70 per cent higher than the Australian average for people aged three to 19, and the inner west has a higher incidence of lung cancer than the general Australian population.
Rates of illness and hospitalisation in the municipality due to air pollution considerably exceed the Australian average. This is in part due to the exhaust from heavy trucks, which contains particulate matter, that blows into resident’s homes.
