New water woe: PFAS contamination
PLAYGROUNDS, tennis courts, community rooms, numerous homes and two schools are all in close proximity to Elston Park which has been identified as one of six bores in Dubbo to return PFAS contamination readings. PFAS is a group of chemicals, including some firefighting foams, that has caused concerns in other parts of Australia.
“We notified the EPA when PFAS was detected and the EPA requested further investigations to identify areas of contamination, levels, and possible sources,” said Dubbo Regional Council Infrastructure director Julian Geddes.
Three of the six bores are used for parks and open space irrigation (Elston, Capari and Showground) and three for town water supply at Driftwells, Thorby and Ronald.
“Of critical note, additional tests of the city’s water supply from the water treatment facility indicate no traces of PFAS leaving the facility and entering the town water supply – something we continue to closely monitor,” Mr Geddes said.
As a precaution, Council also took immediate steps to ‘offline’ one bore providing water to the town water supply, and a frequent water testing regime has been put in place at the water treatment plant to look for any traces of PFAS.
PFAS is short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances and are most commonly attributed to types of firefighting foam, including aviation firefighting foams (Aqueous Film-forming Foams [AFFF]).
There are however over 3000 PFAS chemical compounds used in everyday items, including stain- and water-repellent fabrics, non-stick products (e.g. Teflon), polishes, waxes, paints, and cleaning products.
Mr Geddes issued assurances that Dubbo’s town water remains safe to drink.
“While there were PFAS readings detected at the remaining operational bores out of the six identified, those figures were within the range of the Australian standards for drinking water and recreational water guidelines,” he said.
For Healthy Rivers convener Mel Gray, the news has shocked her and highlights a failure to protect water systems.
“Groundwater isn’t a magic pudding – we need to look after it by protecting the recharge area from pollutants, and making sure we don’t take too much water. We have failed at both,” Mrs Gray said.
“As a community we could do a lot better job of respecting our sources of water – without clean, safe water, Dubbo wouldn’t be here.
“If our drinking water becomes contaminated in the future with dangerous levels of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the criminal responsible has put our town in serious jeopardy. This criminal act has put an enormous burden on Council to ensure our drinking water is safe into the future,” she said.
“It’s up to us to expect more from Governments at all levels to protect natural resources for the public good. When crisis hits, we need to know natural resources haven’t been plundered or polluted for corporate profits.” Professor Stuart Khan from the University of NSW’S Sydney School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Water Research Centre, says that Pfas-contaminated groundwater sites around the country or the world are “a huge failure of risk management”. “We failed to properly assess the risks, by failing to properly consider the fate of these chemicals in the environment. So we have failed to put appropriate risk management controls in place to prevent the pollution that we are seeing today,” Professor Khan told Dubbo Photo News. “That’s a problem that we need to fix at the source so that we don’t repeat these mistakes in the future. Robust management of chemical substances to prevent future environmental pollution is a responsibility that we must take much more seriously than we have in the past,” he said.
Professor Khan said PFAS chemicals don’t tend to bind to soil, so can easily be washed underground and travel relatively long distances away from the original contamination source.
“Another feature of these chemicals is that they are extremely stable in the environment, meaning that they don’t rapidly break down. So pollution at many of the contaminated sites can be measured decades after the events leading to the pollution have ceased,” he said.
In addition to airports, military bases and firefighting training centres, other sources of PFAS pollution can include landfills, sewage treatment plants, and industrial manufacturing plants.
“PFAS definitely causes anxiety and difficulties with water quality, for sure. It is a real issue. I think it’s something that when it’s found in the local water supply anywhere, it’s a news story and something people want information about.
“Water managers need to provide that information,” Professor Khan said.
The origin of the PFAS contamination found in Dubbo’s bores is unknown however Council will commence intensive testing and will determine if other parts of the environment have been affected by PFAS.
“Based on advice from third party specialists and the EPA, I expect sampling and analysis to take several weeks,” Mr Geddes said.
Dubbo Photo News also asked Council for comment on whether private bores sunk in the last few decades should also be tested. Mr Geddes said the presence of PFAS does not necessarily mean there is an unacceptable level of risk to human or environmental health.
“In the first instance, residents should let Council undertake preliminary investigations via the Sampling and Analysis Quality Plan (SAQP), which will determine if other parts of the environment have been affected by PFAS, and also determine the size of the area affected. These results will assist to inform what further actions are required.
“Council is working with the EPA to be able to provide advice,” he said.