How Kalgoorlie-Boulder Solved Its Decades-Long Dust Storm Problem

Doug Daws remembers when colossal dust storms would regularly strike his outback hometown, grinding life to a halt and sending people sprinting indoors.

"You could hear the wind coming, and you'd say, 'quick, quick, get inside, the Esperance doctor's coming', and you had to race inside and close all the windows and doors," he said.

"Never really worked … the dust was very, very bad."

For decades, Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 700 kilometres east of Perth, was plagued by choking clouds of dust blowing off the treeless plains north of the city, and from mine tailings in the south.

Mr Daws has lived in the mining city his whole life and thinks people today do not appreciate how bad the dust was.

"The storms were fairly fierce," Mr Daws said.

"We have no problem now, really, to speak of; it's so small, it's infinitesimal."

Dust storms had been a problem since the 1890s.

"Well, we have a saying here … we just get shit done."

A man for all seasons

In 1973, a man called Julian Grill arrived in Kalgoorlie-Boulder from another historic town: Broken Hill.

Mr Grill arrived with a radical idea to stop the dust.

"He was a very persuasive talker, and he convinced us that we should give it a go," Mr Daws recalled.

"And to his absolute credit, he and the blokes out of the AG [agriculture] department … came up with a workable solution."

Mr Daws was Boulder shire president at the time and remembered thinking the idea was far-fetched, but the town was struggling with a slump in gold prices, so he thought they did not have much to lose.

From there, Mr Grill became chair of the newly established Goldfields Dust Abatement Committee.

A lesson in history

Severe dust storms dated back to the region's gold rush in the 1890s, when tens of thousands flocked to the area.

One of the earliest recorded storms was in 1894, two years after the first gold discoveries.

It was a problem being created and worsened by mining; in the early days the new industry needed wood for tunnels, pumps and heating.

In less than a decade, locals had cleared land around Kalgoorlie-Boulder, and small railways spread out hundreds of kilometres to gather timber.

The deforestation destabilised the region's fine dusty topsoil.

As the miners kept digging for gold, tailings were created and left piles of grey dirt which the wind picked up and carried into town.

The beginning of the end

The studies confirmed that dust storms were primarily coming from this deforestation and mine refuse.

The committee came up with a plan that Mr Daws said seemed "nuts".

Wood chips were spread over the desert floor, saplings planted in arid shrubland and mine tailings were covered in rocks.

To block dust hitting the city from the north, six reserves were created which would become 3,500 hectares of forest.

The reserve was controversial, with 300 saplings being destroyed by vandals and forcing the committee to fence off the area.

"But sometimes you just gotta go and do things, don't you?"

Next, the committee needed to stabilise hundreds of mine tailings. Most methods were prohibitively expensive, so in the late 80s, almost all tailings were taken and put into a single storage area.

By 1981, the dust storms still hit, but as they got closer to town, the severity had reduced.

Working for the next generation

It took 20 years for the dust abatement to take full effect.

While dust still impacts the region, the levels are usually well below the 50 micrograms per cubic metre national air quality recommendations.

In 1994, with its mission largely complete, the committee turned into the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Urban Land Care Group (KBULCG).

Today, it is focused on greening efforts, conducting plantings around town and maintaining the huge reserves that still protect the area.

The once controversial forest is now a popular recreation area for locals, parts now hosting walking trails, playgrounds and picnic areas.

KBULCG chief executive Kim Eckhert said the town would be very different today without the committee.

Today, the group is largely volunteer-run, with hundreds of locals donating their time.

For Mr Daws, tackling the dust is still one of his proudest achievements.

"I just happened to be there at the time, as I said, a bit reluctantly, was drawn into it, but we backed Julian, it worked, we're proud of that," Mr Daws said.

"The dust problem in Kalgoorlie now is basically non-existent.

"People that say, 'oh, it's very dusty here', quite frankly, don't know what they're talking about."