COME CLEAN ON PFAS HEALTH RISKS

Never has the importance of public health been more apparent than in the Covid-19 pandemic. For much of the past two years, Australians have watched press conference after press conference, hanging off every last word uttered by our leaders. Because our wellbeing is at stake. Our livelihoods.

Questions run through our minds. How many cases are going to be reported today? Will any new restrictions be announced?

And, usually, our premiers and chief health officers have the answers, however unpleasant they may be.

Even when we don’t like what we hear, we still defend and cherish our right to hear it.

As synonymous as public health has become with Covid, it’s a field that encompasses more than just infectious diseases.

In today’s Mercury, it was revealed that a rivulet at Cambridge has been contaminated with PFAS chemicals originating from a nearby Tasmania Fire Service training complex.

What we still don’t know is the full extent of the contamination of the Barilla Rivulet – because neither the Police, Fire and Emergency Management Department (DPFEM) nor the Health Department have released reports by external consultants.

That’s despite the fact the contamination of the waterway was bad enough for the DPFEM to tell a local farmer to stop eating food produced on the property because the water used for irrigation had made the products potentially unsafe for consumption.

The DPFEM’s PFAS Working Group is attempting to address the ongoing legacy issues associated with the historic use and storage of PFAScontaining firefighting foams. It deserves credit for that work.

True transparency, however, is conspicuously lacking here.

The department developed a targeted stakeholder and community engagement plan relating to the Cambridge PFAS problem three years ago. Again, credit where it’s due.

But, until now, all the broader public has been told is that the TFS training complex is a PFAS exposure site. Nothing about the rivulet and the affected properties.

That’s not good enough. There’s still a lack of hard medical evidence that PFAS is harmful to human health, but other jurisdictions aren’t taking any chances.

In Victoria, PFAS contamination at the Country Fire Authority’s training college at Fiskville sparked a parliamentary inquiry and a redress scheme for those whose health had been impacted by exposure to the chemicals.

The Tasmanian government needs to treat this issue extremely seriously and be completely open and honest about it with the public.