Contaminated water used to supply Oakey
3 June 2016
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/contaminated-water-used-to-supply-oakey-20160603-gpakhd.html
A Queensland town’s water supply was topped up with contaminated bore water for four years, the local council has admitted.
Water for about 5000 residents in Oakey and nearby Jondaryan, west of Brisbane, was partially sourced from bore water from 2008 to 2012.
It wasn’t until 2014 that Toowoomba Regional Council learned the bore water was contaminated with chemicals in firefighting foam used for decades at a local army training base.
The council has told News Corp the water was treated and made safe for consumption, but some residents fear their health may have been compromised.
The council told the paper it couldn’t guarantee the water was free from perflurooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid, which have been linked to health problems including cancer.
But it said staff believed supplied water would have complied with safety guidelines.
The contamination at Oakey has been the subject of a Senate inquiry, which took many submissions from residents concerned about elevated levels of the chemicals in their blood.
Local Brad Hudson, whose property is near the army base, said his five-year-old daughter already had a high level of PFOS in her blood.
“God knows how this will affect her in her future life,” he said in his submission.
The inquiry recommended Defence fund an annual program of blood tests for Oakey residents, but Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has accused the department of inaction.
Last week he said the department had funded tests for only 75 residents and was resisting paying for others, and had done nothing to compensate landholders for a collapse in property values.
But a Defence spokesman said most Australians would have some level of PFOS and PFOA in their bodies and that testing could create anxiety.
The department said it was continuing to supply potable water to households in the investigation area that used bore water for drinking.
Results of a Defence analysis to predict the movement of PFOS and PFOA in aquifers beneath and surrounding the Oakey Army Aviation Centre are due for public release in August.
Oakey residents urged to race rafts in contaminated creek by Toowoomba Council
7 January 2018
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-06/council-wants-locals-to-race-rafts-in-contaminated-oakey-creek/9307314
Residents of a Queensland town at the centre of a toxic groundwater scandal are being encouraged to take part in a council-run ‘raft race’ in its most contaminated waterway, despite health warnings to avoid it.
The Australia Day community event being run by the Toowoomba Regional Council includes the ‘Oakey Creek Cup’ — in which residents build their own raft and race it in a section of the creek which has recorded toxic foam levels more than 40 times the safe limit.
A flyer for the event states there will be both “open and junior” raft races and that “all competitors enter at their own risk”.
The Toowoomba Regional Council has defended the event, arguing the race can attract up to 800 people and Defence Department advice said the health risk was “low and acceptable”.
Local resident Jenny Spencer took to social media to question the choice of “morale boosting” event.
“The creek is highly contaminated with PFOS and PFOA,” she posted.
“I’m not the fun police but you should not be going in that water.
“It is irresponsible to promote it.
“The rest of the program is wonderful.”
Oakey Creek is the town’s most toxic waterway after thousands of tonnes of PFAS chemicals used in decades of firefighting on the local army base leached into the creek via drains.
Despite ruling out any definitive link between the chemicals and human disease, Defence has told locals not to drink contaminated groundwater as a precaution and Queensland Health guidelines advise residents to avoid contaminated water in case it is accidentally ingested.
Toowoomba council acting chief executive Arun Pratap said council did a risk assessment before deciding to go ahead.
“In this specific case, Council’s due diligence extends to independent confirmation from the Department of Defence that the health level risks are low to acceptable for the purposes of primary contact, which includes swimming,” he said.
“Should the Department of Defence advise of any change in the public health risk profile, then Council would immediately adopt a responsible position of revising its planned water activity program scheduled for Australia Day celebrations.”
The Oakey Creek Cup Raft Race has been an annual tradition in the town since 2012, two years before Defence told residents that groundwater was contaminated.
An event organiser told the ABC it was important “not to live in fear” by avoiding the creek.