Contamination blunder: Hunter under pressure
Environment Minister Ian Hunter was forced to correct information he gave on radio today about chemical contamination levels in a Clovelly Park house.
The on-air blunder came as he confirmed on ABC Radio’s breakfast program that the State Government had deliberately left Housing Trust properties in the contamination zone vacant to “to monitor air vapour”.
“The results show (TCE) levels of two micrograms per cubic meter squared (2ug/m3) and up to eight micrograms in a couple of houses,” Hunter said.
This morning, while presenters Matthew Abraham and David Bevan spoke to another guest, Shadow Environment Minister Michelle Lensink sent a text to the program that “EPA briefings advised TCE levels of 84, not 8”.
When the presenters went back to Hunter, he hurriedly made a correction.
“Yes, it is 84 – I’ve just had a note put in front of me.”
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That level is more than 40 times greater than the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for residences.
The chemical contaminating soil under homes at Clovelly Park is trichloroethylene (TCE) – a group 2a carcinogen, meaning that it probably causes cancer in humans. Because the available evidence indicates that TCE is genotoxic and carcinogenic, the WHO says no safe level of exposure can be recommended, but that, as a guideline, levels of TCE over 2 micrograms/cubic metre should be avoided.
TCE from nearby industrial sites has contaminated the ground water, with vapours working through the soil and into people’s homes.
Hunter’s error is the latest misstep in State Government communications on the Clovelly Park contamination that surfaced in parliament on July 2.
On that day, Hunter chose not to tell parliament that the State Government was planning to move residents out of Housing Trust homes in two Clovelly Park streets.
“Recently, it has been brought to my attention that the ongoing low-level risk has risen and the EPA will be conducting some community consultation in the very near future, primarily getting in touch with residents,” Hunter said at the time.
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Within an hour he confirmed a relocation plan had been approved by Cabinet earlier in the week.
Michelle Lensink told InDaily today that the higher level of 84ug/m3 had been disclosed in briefings given to the Opposition by the EPA last week.
“Ian Hunter’s chief of staff was in those briefings so there’s no excuse for the Minister to not know,” she said.
“The longer this matter goes on, the more it seems that Mr Hunter is not across his portfolio.”
Lensink said the more concerning information was where the much higher levels of contamination were found.
“A lot of the testing is done under kitchen sinks or laundry areas where there are pipes that come up from the soil to inside the house.
“This is where they expect levels to be highest,” she said.
“The 84 reading, however, was found in the bedrooms of the houses that had been left vacant.
“Now that may well be because there’s no-one living there, but its certainly a different part of the house to where they had been previously concerned so I get the impression that it was these readings that made them sit up take notice.
“We know there’s lots of variability in these readings, but this is really high and what’s worse, the minister today was unaware of it.”
