Highlands Highway people worry over dust and noise pollution along road

PEOPLE living along the Mendi to Tari section of the Highlands Highway are calling on the government and the developer PNG LNG project to do something about the frequent noise and dust pollution along the highway.
Steven Napu, a community leader from Utupia village, Poroma, Southern Highlands said that heavy traffic hauling goods and cargo in and out of the LNG project was now a major concern over continuous pollution.
He said that heavy clouds of dust have destroyed their homes, the rivers and their gardens while noise from heavy machineries and trucks have been disturbing them particularly in the night.
He said that since the early works big trucks have been transporting equipment into the LNG sites in the Hela region and innocent people had now become victims as their livelihood had been affected with the pollution.
Napu said that the government and the developer should now discuss on how they could address the pollution along the highway.
“People will develop some kind of respiratory disease with the continuous cloud of dust being made by the past moving heavy vehicles and therefore we want the government and the developer to immediately seal the road from Mendi to Tari,” he said.
He said the people would become victims of what the landowners, the state and the developers would be benefiting from and somethinghad to be done immediately to address the issue before people retaliate.
Napu added that gravel roads were depleting as a result of the frequent movement of the big heavy vehicles making many trips daily.
He also called on the government and the developer to also include the people living along the highway to benefit through equities as compensation like what OK Tedi did to landowners living along the Kiunga-Tabubil road.
Napu has also called on Governor Anderson Agiru and other MPs from the province to support the people so that the road was immediately sealed.
Several other community leaders and people of the area also expressed concern over the issue, claiming this a health hazard to those living along the highway.