May 11, 2017.
Chairman of the Owners’ Representatives Group (ORG)
Dear David (Downie),
On this day of your Special General Meeting with guest Miles Hampton, where Members will be asked to vote, for, or against, the proposed State takeover of TasWater, I politely ask you to answer the question relating to Pioneer, 2009 -2012, which once again you do not answer in your most recent e-mail reply.
I ask you to refer my question to your Members in this public forum. This is a long-standing question, the direct purview of Members, which remains unanswered in any written form to this day.
I will restate the question for you and for your Members:
Please explain the failure to call an alert at any time during the three years at Pioneer, 2009 – 2012, where several high readings were recorded for lead (Pb) exceeding the Australian Drinking Water Health Guidelines. Please read the now public, graphed data, attached once again to today’s letter. This data was released to Pioneer residents in 2013, after the alert of November, 2012. This alert for lead (Pb) continues to this day. Prior to 2009 there is not a data history for lead (Pb), therefore it is possible that this theme of lead (Pb) existed for a very long time earlier.
The comments of your water quality officer, Mr Stapleton, to me, in 2015, to say, in reference to Pioneer, 2009-2012, ‘That wouldn’t happen now… I’m here now…’, are, it should be clear, directly relevant, and of concern. A gold standard was apparently not followed. As Mr Stapleton advised, there is indeed no existing protocol for the calling of alerts for lead (Pb), but rather, Mr Stapleton says, ‘a flexible approach’ is necessary.
In all of my communications to you as Chairman of the ORG, to Mr Gutwein as the responsible Minister, and to the CEO of TasWater, no person has answered in writing my question on behalf of Pioneer, nor referred to the comments by Mr Stapleton.
Should the alert for lead(Pb) have been called earlier at Pioneer? If not, why not, please?
Supplementary to this main inquiry, I furthermore request a written explanation as to why Pioneer’s question, posed to the aformentioned people, on more than one occasion in each case, has been avoided by all, repeatedly, with no written reply.
In conclusion I ask, what protocols do your Members plan to implement to prevent this long-term, repeated deflection of evidenced communications on a question of health about drinking water in Tasmania?
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Tim.
Tim Slade
Pioneer, Tasmania.
*Tim Slade lives in Pioneer, Tasmania. Tim’s many articles about drinking water in Tasmania can be found in the archives of Tasmanian Times: HERE
Tim Slade*
