Matthew Denholm Australian
A TASMANIAN farmer is demanding compensation, believed to be at least $150,000, after herbicides sprayed on a Gunns forest plantation site apparently washed on to adjoining pasture. The state Government is investigating whether any of the herbicides, including one chemical linked to crop contamination in the US, has contaminated waterways. Local residents and community groups last night called for independent tests to be conducted to show whether drinking water had been polluted. The concerns centre on a cattle grazing property at Dairy Plains, Western Creek, in the state’s rural north. Residents’ groups say heavy rains in August washed herbicides applied to a Gunns plantation site in late June on to land owned by farmer Michael Terry. Mr Terry is understood to have lost pasture. Samples have been taken from a large dam on the property that is feared to have been contaminated. Local community groups – Western Rivers Preservation Trust and the Meander Valley Action Group – said they feared the Western Creek, Meander River and South Esk River had been contaminated.
The incident has inflamed local opposition to forest plantations, which have expanded rapidly in recent years, fuelled by tax-friendly investment schemes, taking over farmland. “They are destroying our way of life,” Mr Hutchins said. “Farmers get offers for their land that are too good to refuse and with them goes their families, and with them the services and community. There is also concern about whether the use of these chemicals is linked to the higher incidence of certain cancers in the north of Tasmania.”
