Times
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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2020
GIPPSLAND
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PHASE TWO BEGINS
A MERRY GEORGE GRAY
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In response, Gippsland Water insisted its drinking water was safe. A spokesperson said regular testing and monitoring of drinking water was undertaken for microbiological, chemical and physical substances including PFAS. “Our sampling program for the Seaspray drinking
water supply has shown results are well below the health-based guideline values in the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Australian Drinking Water Guidelines,” he said. “We’re continuing to monitor and test our water supplies routinely to ensure our water is safe to drink and these results will be made publicly
available on our website.” Mr Amis said it was difficult to determine how dangerous the pollution was to human health, because out of the thousands of PFAS chemicals in the environment, there were only national health guidelines for three. Continued page 3
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Test results at Gippsland Water’s Seaspray Water Treatment Plant showed elevated levels of PFAS chemicals in reticulation, waste water and raw water.
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A LEADING environmental organisation is calling for an urgent investigation into water contamination in Wellington Shire, after elevated PFAS chemicals were identified in reticulation, waste water and raw water at Seaspray and at low levels in Briagolong and Sale. A Freedom of Information request submitted by Friends of the Earth has revealed water testing by Gippsland Water at Seaspray has recorded a number of incidents regarding PFAS contamination since early March 2017. FoE land use researcher Anthony Amis, who tracks PFAS contamination around the world, said the elevated readings in Seaspray were particularly concerning because testing only began three years ago, but there was no data on how long people in the community had been exposed. The first test results from Seaspray’s Final Lagoon in March 2017 revealed six different PFAS chemicals had been detected at a combined level of 0.57ppb (parts per billion). Subsequently, Gippsland Water undertook oncea-month testing for 28 different PFAS chemicals at the inlet to the Seaspray Water Treatment Plant. Detections were recorded in May 2017, then September 2017, October 2019 and January 2020. According to Mr Amis, the results are “disturbing”, because they mean the PFAS detected there was most likely excreted from people living or visiting Seaspray, and unlikely to have come from an industrial source unless it had leached into the raw water. Testing of Seaspray’s reticulated water then began in November 2017, with PFAS detections in the reticulation detected in November 2019, April 2020 and August 2020. The results from Briagolong and Sale showed the chemicals were also present, but at lower levels. However, none of the findings have been made public until now.