Unified, automated dust management and monitoring systems have traditionally come at a high cost, both from initial setup expenses and ongoing maintenance, however, Cooee Products says it is changing that. Cooee has partnered with Pervasive Telemetry and Kenelec Scientific to develop the Cooee Dust Monitoring solution – an end-to-end hosted telemetry and control solution, which leverages communications infrastructure, including 3G and GPS. The solution combines dust, weather and stock monitoring into a single, transparent and real-time system that is readily available to all stakeholders.

As the company that introduced the revolutionary DustBloc dust suppression agent to the market, this was a logical next step. “The monitoring systems partners extremely well with DustBloc,” says Cooee Managing Director Tony Pynsent. “The system also goes beyond dust: It looks at all air quality concerns, including blast fumes. It can give you immediate feedback, thanks to weather integration, of where the fumes are going and whether blasting should continue.”

Using the Cooee Dust Monitoring system, sites can also easily see how well DustBloc or other dust suppression techniques are working.

When companies are unable to accurately monitor and report on air quality to regulatory bodies, they can be left to take responsibility for dust conditions when they are not at fault, meaning more money out of pocket.

Thanks to the Cooee Dust Monitoring system, the information is readily available and accessible through a web browser, including support for mobile devices. According to Pynsent, the information could be made accessible to the government and communities quite easily.

Unlike other dust monitoring options on the market, all hardware, firmware, software, reporting and server infrastructure for Cooee Dust Monitoring systems are designed and manufactured to work together. This means that clients no longer need to rely on multiple companies for service and maintenance. The systems provide access to real time and historical information about your field assets, with reporting information gathered for you and stored online.

For Prashant Maharaj, Managing Director of Pervasive Telemetry, the fact this solution uses hosted server infrastructure makes is particularly attractive. “We wanted to take away the clients’ dependence on dedicated servers and software, and allow them the freedom of being able to access their data on any web browser,” he said.

This is also what sets the Cooee Dust Monitoring system apart from other solutions. “The client has purchased our hardware and hosting solution, but it is their data – they own that data and why would we even consider restricting them access to it by charging them a software fee?” Maharaj said.

For Pynsent, the real reward is seeing the solution work for companies on the ground. “There really isn’t anything like this on the market at the moment,” he said. “We’re just happy to be in a position to provide a much needed service.”

Cooee has produced DustBloc since 2005. This dust suppressant is a stable emulsion of bitumen in water that is made with a number of special additives, which enables it to mix easily with all types of water. The result is a product that not only reduces dust, but also decreases the amount of water used on a mine site or road, which allows for less deterioration.