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Their hypothesis – and they do not claim this as proven fact, simply suggest it warrants deeper investigation – is that the toxin is particularly concentrated and present at worrying levels in the river because leaves falling into it are from plantations of Eucalyptus nitens that have been selectively bred for faster growth and perhaps have more potent toxins than occur naturally.
Dr Bleaney also believes these leaf toxins alone may not be to blame for problems with the town’s water supply, but could be combining with other chemicals in the river.
But she stresses none of this has been proved; that all she is trying to do is to get the Government and the public health authorities in Tasmania to take the issue seriously and to start doing some further testing.
As she points out, if the problem with toxins in St Helens water supply is linked to tree plantations upstream, then it is likely the water supplies of dozens of other Tasmanian towns, including Hobart and Launceston, are similarly affected.
While she doesn’t claim to have all the answers yet, on a public health level Dr Bleaney rightly points out there could be nothing more serious than question marks existing over an entire state’s water supply.
Yet even this time, the second of the serious alarm bells rung about St Helens water over the past five years, the Government and the authorities were remarkably slow to act.
It took five days of increasing alarm in the town before on Friday, the state public health director Roscoe Taylor ordered Ben Lomond Water to immediately install expensive activated carbon powder filtration in the town’s water-treatment plant and a barrage of more tests.
But in some ways the slowness to respond is not Dr Taylor’s fault. He admits to being confounded and frustrated at the reluctance of doctors Bleaney and Scammell to make all eight test results and reports about the water toxins available to him to read and assess.
Currently, most of the key results of the St Helens water testing are being held – for some unclear reason – by the pair’s lawyers from class-action specialist legal firm Slater and Gordon. Dr Taylor admits he can’t understand why the scientific data underpinning Dr Bleaney’s and Dr Scammell’s claims is available only from Slater and Gordon lawyer Peter Long, who works from a legal practice in Gunnedah in rural NSW.
But in some ways the slowness to respond is not Dr Taylor’s fault. He admits to being confounded and frustrated at the reluctance of doctors Bleaney and Scammell to make all eight test results and reports about the water toxins available to him to read and assess.
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