Remediation of Toxic Sites Urgently Needed - 9 February 2006

Banning commercial fishing in Sydney Harbour due to high levels of dioxins in fish will not be enough unless toxic sites in known contaminated hotspots are adequately remediated, said Greens MLC Ian Cohen today.

“Fish swim - some species, such as trevally, swim great distances. How do you draw an artificial boundary in an aquatic environment? Banning fishing in Sydney Harbour will not stop those fish swimming beyond the Heads and out to sea, where they can be fished and consumed. While dioxins are still present in the harbour, particularly around aquatic breeding sites such as the mangroves found around Homebush Bay, people will continue to eat fish with potentially dangerous levels of these carcinogenic poisons,” Mr Cohen said.

“The remediation of Homebush Bay has not gone far enough. The World Health Organisation’s recommended ‘safe’ levels of dioxin were revised during the 1990s from 10 parts to 4, when it was realised that dioxins were more dangerous than previously thought. The government should have revised the area to be remediated in response to this, but instead it abandoned the health-based approach to remediation. It must finish the job. The scope of works in Homebush Bay must be increased in order to capture more of the dioxins present.

“This has been part of a pattern of inaction by the government in regard to heavily toxic sites. In Botany Bay little was done until the toxic flow had reached Penrhyn Estuary. At the former AGL site in Mortlake, now being redeveloped as Breakfast Point, there have been years worth of investigation, but little action. It will be a residential area, despite being one of the most contaminated areas of the harbour.

“The NSW Government has known about the potential dangers of dioxins in the aquatic environment for years, but it has failed to act. The warnings of environment groups have been ignored. I raised the dangers of stirring up toxic sediments in my dissenting report in the Inquiry into the Redevelopment and Remediation of the Rhodes Peninsula in 2002. One also has to wonder how much carcinogenic pollution was released in the dredging of the Parramatta River for the Rivercat service.

“I strongly urge the government to act immediately to properly clean-up the toxic legacy in Sydney’s waterways once and for all.” Mr Cohen said.