The Eurobodalla Shire Council is being pushed to conduct tests of the groundwater supply at Broulee on the New South Wales far south coast.
The Moruya-based property owner Damien Rogers says the Council dumped tankers of toxic leachate at an old tip site in the early 1990s.
Mr Rogers says the substance poisoned cattle at the time, and there is a chance it could still have an adverse impact on a major freshwater aquifer.
He says the Council has failed to act.
"The dumping occurred, and we don't know what was in that leachate, but we know it was strong enough to kill cattle," he said.
"Whether it's lasted in the environment, that's for the experts to decide.
"They can test it and find out quite easily, it's not a big test.
"But that's the only way of knowing, otherwise we're shooting in the dark to try and speculate whether there's anything that's lasted in the environment."
He says there is a chance the substance remains highly toxic.
"A lot of the poisons that come out of leachate tips are very toxic, and they can last in the environment for many years," he said.
"So residents have to know that the water is safe.
"In old tips, everything went in there, from DDT, dioxins, PCBs; everything's possible in that tip."
For more, go to the South East News blog.
Tags: environment, pollution, water-pollution, broulee-2537, moruya-2537First posted June 6, 2011 11:29:00
1 comment:
In order to effectively tackle groundwater pollution researchers first need to find its source. However, in many cases it is extremely hard to find the source(s) of groundwater pollution mostly because of the lack of the adequate observation and the large number of different pollutants.
groundwater consultant
Post a Comment