\n<\/p>\n
Sydney Water did not perform \u201can appropriate level of due diligence\u201d before claiming there were no known Pfas hotspots within its drinking water catchments, a state parliamentary committee has found.<\/p>\n
The New South Wales upper house committee tabled its 16 findings and 32 recommendations on Thursday following an inquiry triggered by reporting in the Sydney Morning Herald that detected elevated levels of some \u201cforever chemicals\u201d in parts of Sydney\u2019s drinking water catchment.<\/p>\n
Pfas (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), a group of several thousand synthetic compounds, are found in a wide variety of products including waterproof fabrics, food packaging, hygiene products and firefighting foam. They are sometimes referred to as \u201cforever chemicals\u201d because they are slow to break down and persist in the environment for extended periods.<\/p>\n
Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann, the committee\u2019s chair, said there was \u201cgeneral agreement among committee members that more attention needs to be given by the government to the rapidly evolving issue of Pfas contamination of our waterways\u201d.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis report contains strong recommendations to assist the government in this challenging work and I encourage them to give the utmost consideration to all of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The committee said it was concerned that a statement by Sydney Water in June last year that there were \u201cno known Pfas hotspots\u201d in its drinking water catchments was made \u201cin the absence of a rigorous and proactive program of regular monitoring, testing and reporting\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report said this was evidenced in subsequent testing in the Blue Mountains that found elevated levels of some types of Pfas in untreated water, including at Medlow Dam.<\/p>\n
Last year, WaterNSW shut down the small Medlow and Greaves Creek dams after tests detected the elevated levels in untreated water.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers of the Blue Mountains community made it very clear to the committee that they felt let down by Sydney Water,\u201d Faehrmann said.<\/p>\n
The committee also found there was a lack of effective collaboration between federal government agencies, including the department of defence, and the state government in managing Pfas contamination.<\/p>\n
In further findings, the committee said the identification of Pfas bioaccumulation in wildlife, including fish, in the vicinity of Williamtown in 2016 should have triggered \u201cproactive testing for Pfas in waterways and drinking water across New South Wales\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also found the state\u2019s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) did not act in line with the precautionary principle when it failed to erect signs along the Belubula River after the discovery of Pfas contamination to warn against swimming and fishing until testing was completed.<\/p>\n
Among its recommendations, the committee said the state government should ensure regular testing for Pfas in water across NSW, that it should call on the federal government to regularly review the available evidence on Pfas in the Australian Water Drinking Guidelines, and government agencies should support communities and community members seeking information on Pfas.<\/p>\n
The report also called on the government to support blood testing of willing Blue Mountains residents to \u201cdetermine whether Pfas concentrations are higher in the blood of Blue Mountains community members\u201d compared to the general population.<\/p>\n
Prof Stuart Khan, the head of the University of Sydney\u2019s School of Civil Engineering, said the findings and recommendations of the inquiry suggested the implementation of Australia\u2019s drinking water guidelines by the responsible agencies was lacking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like Sydney Water and WaterNSW have forgotten that it is a risk management framework \u2013 they have to be proactive in implementing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He called on the government to \u201ccomprehensively review\u201d the understanding and implementation of drinking water guidelines across the water sector.<\/p>\n
The government noted the report and said it would respond within the three months required by the parliament. A spokesperson thanked the committee for their work, and community members who shared their views and expertise.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said whole-of-government work was under way to respond to and manage the impacts of Pfas contamination and \u201cwork dealing with this legacy contaminant is ongoing\u201d, which included an assessment by the EPA of more than 1,100 legacy sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs announced in June, all NSW public drinking water supplies \u2013 across metropolitan and regional areas \u2013 currently meet the updated Australian Drinking Water Guidelines,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognise there is community concern about PFAS levels in water, and we are committed to continuously improving our approach in line with national guidelines and the latest evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Donna Lu<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sydney Water did not perform \u201can appropriate level of due diligence\u201d before claiming there were no known Pfas hotspots within its drinking water catchments, a state parliamentary committee has found. The New South Wales upper house committee tabled its 16 findings and 32 recommendations on Thursday following an inquiry triggered by reporting in the Sydney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[12617,4966,4051,189,3662,357,2700,8056,4234,76,1183],"class_list":{"0":"post-20512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-catchments","9":"tag-declaring","10":"tag-failed","11":"tag-finds","12":"tag-hotspots","13":"tag-inquiry","14":"tag-pfas","15":"tag-properly","16":"tag-sydney","17":"tag-test","18":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}