Economy
Bleaney continues water fight
UNREPENTANT whistleblower Alison Bleaney has vowed to continue the campaign that sparked St Helens’ water saga.
Dr Bleaney, a medical practitioner, told the Sunday Tasmanian she would not stop agitating for high-quality monitoring of pesticide and herbicide levels in the North-East township’s water supply and other catchments, despite the George River receiving the all-clear last week.
Business and community leaders said most of the town’s residents accepted the all-clear from the George River Water Quality Panel and believed there was no need for further investigations.
However, in a letter to the Sunday Tasmanian late on Friday, Dr Bleaney said the panel had ignored the main point of the findings relating to “Something in the Water”.
“Attached to particles in the river there is a toxin which is transported down the river in foam. Testing has determined that the toxin’s best match is to the E.nitens leaf,” she said.
“During low river flow the water is not toxic to test organisms, but it is toxic to them when there is enough rain to increase the particle count by a factor of between three and five, and this is added to the cocktail of pesticides, wetting agents, fertilisers, etc, contained in our raw drinking water.
“Raw drinking water should not contain toxins, but the Government’s expert panel has decided, without carrying out any tests, that further investigation is unnecessary. This is unacceptable.”
Earlier on Tasmanian Times: Drs Bleaney and Scammell: The panel appears to have disregarded data …