Chemical use in Australian forests is clean and it follows strict guidelines - recent claims against this are unfounded and are no cause for concernIn recent times there have been two instances, in Tasmania and the ACT where concerns over water quality have been created by a Sydney Doctor’s claims that chemical usage in Australian forests is damaging drink water quality.
The first was in Tasmania where general practitioner Alison Bleaney and Sydney-based water scientist Marcus Scammell claimed the St Helens water catchment area was supposedly contaminated with atrazine. The Australian Medical Association has since conluded that their report had serious methodology flaws.
“Their document fails to demonstrate increased evidence of adverse health effects, including cancer rates in the St Helens region of Tasmania,” AMA state president Michael Aizen said.
Recent water testing, by the University of Tasmania found no evidence of the 17 most commonly used pesticides and herbicides in any of the rivers. The tests were set to detect traces of a single part per billion.
“At this stage we’ve found nothing at all that’s out of the ordinary,” said Mike Johnson, manager of Analytical Services Tasmania, the lab that carried out the tests.
“No atrazine or simazine, none of the common forestry pesticides at all.”
Tasmanian Health Minister David Llewellyn said the claims “caused residents in the area to be unnecessarily alarmed.”
A second instance onf ‘contamination alarm’ has taken place in Canberra, again with Dr Scammell as a critic.
Scammell told The Canberra Times the use of forestry herbicides in a water catchment was “dumb practice” and a threat to human health. He said the lower Cotter River’s loose, fire-affected soils would make it “easy for the chemicals to move around and enter the water supply”.
The ACT’s water provider managing director Michael Costello and ACT chief health officer Dr Paul Dugdale have both reassured Canberrans their drinking water was safe and complied with national drinking water standards.
“I think the people of Canberra can be confident,” Mr Costello said.
“We have for many years had, as part of our normal operations, regularly tested water for a suite of chemicals in accordance with the Australian drinking water guidelines.”
Dr Dugdale said all herbicides and pesticides used by ACT Forests were registered with national authorities as suitable for use in water catchments.
Tree Plantations CEO Phil Townsend said that the new official findings showed that some forest activists had been working deliberately to mislead and alarm local communities about the nature of plantation forestry.
“Our members work closely with local communities in developing tree plantations, and we do not accept that deliberate attempts to mislead the community are a legitimate tactic for activists to employ.”
He said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality identified Atrazine as a “type 3 carcinogen”, putting it in the same category as tea, coffee and talcum powder.
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) states that “Atrazine has been used in many countries for over 40 years and extensive testing and monitoring during this time by many independent agencies has produced no evidence that Atrazine causes cancer in humans.”