Toxic PFAS chemicals have been found in small quantities at Shoalhaven City Council sewage treatment works.
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But Shoalhaven Water director Carmel Krogh said the discovery does not indicate a risk, especially to the Shoalhaven’s water supply.
Mrs Krogh said low levels of the chemicals were discovered in raw sewage during Shoalhaven Water testing.
“The levels discovered were well below the drinking water standard,” she said.
In May, the Environment Protection Agency [EPA] named HMAS Albatross as one of the sources of increased levels of the chemicals in fish caught in the Shoalhaven River.
Following that revelation, which showed the chemicals could travel long distances, to get from the Nowra Hill base to the river, Fairfax Media asked whether any testing had been undertaken around the Shoalhaven water supply areas and in particular Bamarang Dam on Yalwal Road, which is used as an off stream storage dam, supplied from the Shoalhaven River at Burrier.
“We consulted with EPA, which is the lead agency on this investigation, and from their perspective they hadn’t flagged the area around Bamarang as an issue, so from our perspective it wasn’t a high risk area,” Mrs Krogh said.
“Instead, for the sake of our own due diligence, we took a different slant and looked at the risk profile to test some of the influent, the raw sewage, of our treatment plants.
“We saw that as a higher risk area - we tested the raw sewage coming to the Nowra, Bomaderry and Callala works - that would give us a dual indication, if it was in the sewage and also the water supply.
“We discovered PFAS, which is also present from various other sources, but it was well below the drinking water levels for those contaminants.”
Mrs Krogh allayed fears about the Shoalhaven’s water supply, reiterating a previous Shoalhaven Water statement, saying the water draw off point from Burrier was above the tidal limit of the Shoalhaven River and could not be affected by HMAS Albatross.
Bamarang Dam is supplied from the Shoalhaven River at Burrier and the dam itself does not have a catchment and therefore cannot receive contaminated runoff originating from HMAS Albatross, the statement said.
Council is currently well into its biggest ever public works project, a $110 million upgrade of the Nowra and Bomaderry sewage treatment plants.
The first sod on the Shoalhaven Water project which also incorporates the next stage (1B) of the Shoalhaven Reclaimed Water Management Scheme (REMS) was turned in October 2017.
The project includes the $110 million construction of new facilities at Bomaderry and Nowra sewage treatment plants and the design and construction of a transfer main under the Shoalhaven River to connect the two plants.
- PFAS (per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances) are a group of chemicals that include perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorohexane sulfonate (PFHxS). As they have heat, water and stain repelling properties, PFAS have been widely used in a range of industrial and consumer products both in Australia and internationally, including in fire retardants, water proofing, food preparation, food packaging, furnishings, clothing and recreational equipment. They were historically used in firefighting foams by Defence and civil operations, with the EPA naming the Nowra naval base as one of the sources of increased levels of the chemicals in fish caught in the Shoalhaven River and also Currambene Creek.