Kootingal, Moonbi, Bendermeer hit out at council over uranium water contamination

About 50 people expressed their disappointment and anger over the way council handled the situation, at a community meeting at Kootingal Bowling Club on Thursday night.

Moonbi resident Tracy Waters asked where the council’s duty of care was, and said TRC had let the communities of Kootingal, Moonbi and Bendemeer down by “not being open and upfront about what was going on”.

“Why was I not given the information about the high uranium levels, so I could make the choice about whether I continue to drink the water?” she said.

“I’m not wholly concerned by the uranium – it is a concern – but my major concern is the way council has gone about this.”

“You found out in July, you admitted that in the letter that was thrown over my fence at 9 o’clock at night.”

Her daughter, Amy Waters, was furious council withheld the information from residents for so long.

“It was only released a month after you found a problem,” Ms Waters said.

“You had staff run around in the middle of the night the day before it was released on the front page of the paper.”

Kootingal resident James Charles said he “wasn’t fill with a lot of confidence” by council’s response, and didn’t know what to expect next time he turned the tap on.

Fellow Kootingal resident, John Holt received a round of applauded when he asked why the health information sheet was “distributed in the junk mail”.

Hunter New England Health issued a statement there was only a “negligible risk” of adverse health effects.

But many residents weren’t convinced and questioned how that decision was reached, and what the terms of reference were.

TAMWORTH Regional Council has defended its actions in dealing with the uranium contamination of Kootingal, Moonbi and Bendemeer’s drinking water, but admitted there was room for improvement.

TRC’s water director Bruce Logan said council didn’t want to tell residents about the contamination until it had “answers to their obvious questions” about the health risks from the Department of Health.

“We thought [waiting] would be better than saying ‘we’ve got this problem, we don’t know what the problem is, and it will be a while before we can tell you’,” Mr Logan said.

“Then, the story was going to appear in the paper, and what I felt was going to be the best approach wasn’t going to work, so we needed to tell the members of the community before they saw it in the paper.”

The notifications were hand delivered, as sending letters through Australia Post would take four to seven days.

“We wanted to communicate quickly with people and get them messages as soon as we possible can,” Mr Logan said.

Council was also criticised for leaving notifications for Moonbi and Bendemeer residents at the towns’ general stores, but Mr Logan said council paid the stores to distribute the letters.

Mr Logan admitted council should have followed up with the stores, to make sure the service it paid for was carried out.

Kootingal councillor Phil Betts said he had drunk the water for 63 years.

“I have consumed it all my life, I have children who have been drinking all their live and my grandchildren as well – and I am not concerned,” Cr Betts said.

“I want to let everyone know that I’m going to make sure that we are adequately informed.”

Mayor Col Murray said council would hold a second community meeting to address the ongoing concerns.

“We’ll have an opportunity to seek answers to the [unanswered] questions raised, and there is little more council do under the circumstances,” Cr Murray said.

“I hope the community left better informed.”

THE state government will send two public health physicians to sit down with the residents of Kootingal, Moonbi and Bendemeer for free consults about the risks of the uranium water contamination.

Hunter New England Health says there is a “negligible risk” of adverse health effects.

Tamworth Regional Council general manager Paul Bennett said the Department of Health made the offer, knowing there would still be residents with concerns.

“They know council can’t answer these health concerns, so they’re going to send professionals in the field to come up and met with individuals and small groups,” Mr Bennett said.

“We’ll provide them with the facility to have those meetings and we will conduct them in the near future.”

Mr Bennett said while TRC took “absolute responsibility” for reading the test results wrong for two years, council was not an authority on uranium contamination health risks.

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to defer to the experts when we don’t know the answer to something.”