Water security concern
Re: Toxic pollution from the Medway/Berrima Mine leaking heavy metals 120 times the recommended base levels into the Wingecarribee River still unchecked. 1095 million litres of water a year is draining from the disused mine into the Wingecarribee River. It's a problem to be added to our growing health burden and, as related in a recent article in international news by the Lancet, is a devastating world pollution health crisis.
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Australia must set higher international standards by providing pristine drinking water and clean air. Clean drinking water is a scarce resource that needs to be protected and valued. I understand under the present systems, metals like those flowing into the Wingecarribee River, are not removed from our daily drinking water.
The system under the EPA's watch has failed miserably to detect unacceptably high levels of heavy metals entering our drinking water such as magnesium, iron, nickel, and zinc. Once in our body these highly toxic metals stay with us for life. This threatens Australia's precious "Water Security" and ours and our vunerable children’s health and development. We must ensure the bar is raised and regulated to international standards, install proper filters to remove toxins from water and protect Sydney's precious water catchment.
Government should offer citizens certain fundamentals and at the top of the list should be clean drinking water. The NSW Government must stand up for Sydney's 7.5 million residents. Why have these unacceptably high levels remained undetected and unreported, slipping under the radar when the EPA is supposed to do random checks on effluent flowing out of coal mines into the population’s drinking water?
The EPA says in a classic statement, the elevated metals come from geology, rather than the active mining process. As I heard from an expert the other day it rings in his ears and sounds a bit like "The dog ate my homework". If the mining activity had not disturbed the geology the metals would remain locked up, the pollution is a delayed response to the mining activity.
Surely this is basic husbandry, not to detect these high levels of toxins is a serious derelection of duty. What worries me most is the number of staff in the EPA that are supposed to monitor mines and our drinking water standards have been severely cut further exacerbating the problem.
