Ryk Goddard
This something you knew already? What are the chemicals that this article is talking about?
Graham Hawke
Well the articles is talking about a class of chemicals known as PFAS. It’s got a complicated name and they’re a large and complex group of synthetic chemicals. They’ve been used in consumer products and in industry around the world since about 1950s. Coming back to the study which was the University Queensland study back in 2011, what it found was low levels of two compounds, two of the PFAS compounds, which are less between one quarter and one half of the new US guideline levels which are very very low and the important thing is this, TasWater is in the process right now of doing sampling of its water, raw water catchments across Tasmania. We’re two thirds of the way complete, 500 tests completed and we found no detection of PFAS.
Ryk Goddard
What harm can PFAS do?
Graham Hawke
Well look the concerns are that it’s look it’s a chemical that doesn’t break down easily or readily and sort of stays in the environment for a long time but some of the health concerns which are associated you know it’s pretty hard to do experiments on humans but the sort of concerns that have been expressed particularly in the US is things like increased cholesterol, it can have impacts on the kidney and liver function and impacts like that. In Australia the health experts have talked about for most people the levels their exposure is sufficiently small that they don’t see that there is concern but given the US has dropped its standards dramatically compared to anyone else in the world there is work being done presently by the Australian Government health organisations to review whether the Australian drinking water guidelines which is what TasWater uses whether they need to be adjusted further.
Ryk Goddard
So you say you’ve done a lot of testing and haven’t found these anywhere.
Graham Hawke
That’s right.
Ryk Goddard
But what about in Kingborough where the Sydney Morning Herald article suggested they did find them?
Graham Hawke
Well look again back to the 2011 study the levels they found were 0.73 and 1.76 compared to the low level that the US has dropped which is four parts per trillion so we’re talking about extremely low levels of detection. So the important thing is in Tasmania we’re not you know the headline is it’s you know been found in lots of places in Australia but the headline in Tasmania is that’s not the case and I should say I highly respect the journalist who’s done the work for the Sydney Morning Herald. She’s done a power of work over more than a decade in Australia and the US. Highly respect the journalist.
Ryk Goddard
So it’s not a beat-up in that sense it is accurate but we it’s not really a serious cause for concern so much as it’s about keeping up with a new standard?
Graham Hawke
Well look it is a serious source of concern in general and particularly in the United States where greater population, greater number of military bases, they manufacture some of these products you know that’s where they emanated in terms of the world concern and there’s been some poor practices unfortunately in the US and that’s impacted sadly you know it’s on some communities and so the US has formed the view that there’s multiple lines of evidence of association of health impacts that they’ve dropped the standard down. Australia is fortunate to have a far less frequent extent of contaminated sites and again Tasmania you know we’ve got the you know many benefits of living in Tasmania but one of them is we don’t haven’t had that same level industrial impact. You can still get exposures at low levels through domestic sources because these products are used in a range of things nonstick cookware, fast food packaging, personal care products, carpet and furniture sprays that can help resist stains and grease and water and so forth so you can get low levels of detections and you know we need to be aware of that and the Australian government is also doing work to ban some of these products come the 1st of July 2025 so there is work at a national level but the important thing from Tasmanian viewpoint you know we became aware of these change standards in the US, took the action, said let’s find out what we’ve got in our catchments and so far it’s coming up at non detect levels.