KOOTINGAL residents woke on Thursday morning to news their water supply had levels of uranium nearly double the recommended drinking water guidelines – and for how long, no one knew.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) first became aware of the issue when one of Kootingal’s bores returned a positive result during routine testing, specifically targeting uranium, on July 15.
A second test was carried out on August 19 to confirm the findings, and four days later the water supply was switched.
It then took TRC about three weeks to inform the 1100 homes directly affected when staff conducted a door-to-door leaflet drop on Wednesday night.
Residents are rightfully concerned about the health implications of ingesting water containing high levels of uranium, especailly parents of babies and young children.
It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that TRC could tell us exactly when the last test for uranium was conducted prior to the first positive result in July.
Hunter New England Health has revealed it was only notified of Kootingal's uranium-contaminated bore towards the end of August - nearly six weeks after the guideline breach was first discovered.
Since the news broke, TRC and NSW Health seem to be pointing the finger at one another.
TRC says the delay in delivering health information to affected residents is because the NSW Health Department has not yet provided the health advice they sought.
But Health is saying they can't provide specific health advice until TRC does more testing and provides additional data.
Regardless of who is at fault for the tardiness, it seems clear that the health department is not well prepared to deal with this kind of situation rapidly. One would hope it would have some kind of general information available to circulate quickly. While the health risks are low, the information void is understandably being filled with anxiety.
Both organisations need to learn lessons from this event and ensure they have processes in place to deal with similar occurrences quickly and effectively.
What are the health impacts on affected households? Why weren’t they told sooner? Why was the bore not switched off after the first positive test as a precaution?
So many questions remain buried in murky water. We can only hope answers begin to float to the surface soon.
