Economy
STATE: TasWater emails show company planned to hit back at scientists
Documents appear to show TasWater had a strategy of avoiding unwelcome independent scientific findings about lead contamination in the water supply in north-east Tasmania.
Internal communications obtained by the ABC under Right to Information laws have revealed that TasWater planned to hit back against the scientists by challenging their research.
TasWater strongly denies any wrongdoing.
Unsafe lead contamination was first discovered in the drinking water in the small regional town of Pioneer in 2012.
Last year environmental scientists from Macquarie University, Professor Mark Taylor and PhD student Paul Harvey, released a peer-reviewed study into Pioneer’s water problems and claimed to have found answers.
They reported lead levels inside houses in Pioneer were 22 times above the safe drinking standard, which they described as the worst in Australia.
Professor Taylor and Mr Harvey explained their findings at a community meeting in Pioneer last April and invited the Department of Health and TasWater to attend, but TasWater declined.
A TasWater briefing note written before the meeting and sent to senior scientific and communications staff appears to show why.
• Peter in Comments: TasWater has failed to disclose a possible conflict of interest in its review of the original Macquarie University research by an industry body called Water Research Australia. One of the directors of WRA happens to be a manager with TasWater …
TIM SLADE (and Isla MacGregor) have written extensively about Pioneer’s contaminated water on Tasmanian Times …
• Pioneer folk wonder if TasWater’s WorkSafe Tasmania Award is a joke …
• Local councils Vote for Transparency at TasWater
• A typical kneejerk response …
• The Pioneer Cup: Horse-trading for safe drinking water in Tasmania
• The Pioneer Cup: Horse-trading for safe drinking water in Tasmania
• Toxic TasWater, Part 2 ~ From the Operating Room to a Public Meeting with the Health Minister
AND …
• TasWater concedes NE Tas water may have been contaminated for years. A Will … but no way?
• Rosebery – 7 years on and still waiting for safe water?
• Told you so, TasWater, TasWater and Dr Roscoe Taylor
• The axing of Pesticide Monitoring in Waterways
• Janine Britten in Comments HERE: Rosebery residents have been putting up with brown discoloured water for the past 3 months, which in this day and age is not acceptable. On contacting TasWater on Wednesday 6th april 2016, within two days the drinking water was clear … is this telling us something; TasWater have been cost-cutting and not chlorinating the Rosebery water supply; after telling them of residents who were complaining of headaches and itchy skin they decided to act . When it rains the water is usually discoloured for a few days then clears but the past 3 months we have had very little rain, and discoloured water… !
• Alison in Comments: Parkinson’s ‘cluster’ in rural Victoria could be linked to pesticides, researchers say