5 February 2025

ALAN HAYES

 

CEN Chair, Gary Chestnut, said the testing was necessary following Central Coast Council’s revelation that PFAS had been found in a raw (untreated) water sample in Ourimbah Creek.

 

“Given the fact that Ourimbah Creek is part of the Central Coast’s drinking water supply catchment, the revelation that PFAS has been detected, immediately sounds a loud alarm that this may be related to the Mangrove Mountain Landfill,” Mr Chestnut said.

 

“According to the EPA’s website, as part of the authority’s commitment to transparency and safeguarding the environment, ‘the EPA is regularly undertaking compliance inspections and is reviewing the Environment Protection Licence to ensure that it provides effective measures to monitor the environmental impact of the site’.

 

“The EPA says it conducts inspections of the landfill to assess the management of water and leachate… It says staff from the EPA and Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) have conducted sampling of Ourimbah Creek and its tributaries over several years.

 

“The most recent sampling was conducted by the EPA and DCCEEW in February 2024 but it appears the water was not tested for PFAS at that time.

 

The Grapevine reported in September 2024 that PFAS has been detected in the liver of a dead platypus in Ourimbah Creek.

 

PFAS substances have long been understood around the world as a contaminating and carcinogenic group of chemicals, which could substantially impact on the health of those exposed by leeching into water and soils.

 

“Given the outcome of testing conducted by Central Coast Council, it is imperative that all creeks surrounding the landfill, Hallards Creek, Stringy Bark Creek, Ourimbah Creek and the unnamed creek that flows directly under the landfill mass, must be tested regularly for PFAS,” Mr Chestnut said.

 

“It will soon be 12 months since Verde Terra discontinued its appeals in the Land and Environment Court against judgements that said that it was required to lodge a development application with a supporting Environmental Impact Statement if it wished to continue any landfill operations at the site.

 

“It is over 12 years since the legal proceedings about the development consent regarding the redevelopment of the golf course started for the Central Coast community who continue to live with the unapproved, unlined landfill and its uncontrolled leachate at the top of our water supply catchment.

 

“The residents living downstream of the testing site deserve to be made aware of the risks. As part of our drinking water supply catchment all residents of the Central Coast need be made aware.

 

“The EPA has been complicit in the travesty of this landfill. It amended the operators’ Environmental Protection Licence 12 times in breach of the NSW Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1995.

 

“Over the life of that landfill, when the operator breached the conditions of its licence, rather than enforce, the EPA simply amended the licence to accommodate the breach. If there is PFAS in our water catchment and the source is the landfill the EPA is directly responsible.

 

“The EPA put revenue from dumping fees before protecting the environment and the Central Coast’s drinking water catchment over the lifetime of the landfill at Mangrove Mountain which fell under the disguise of the remodelling of a golf course.

 

“The Central Coast Council, as our water authority, has been required to test for PFAS and has announced the results. Now the EPA needs to come clear and test the creeks surrounding Mangrove Mountain landfill for PFAS on an ongoing basis.

 

“If PFAS is detected in those creeks the EPA must work to immediately remediate the site and deliver a solution to keep our drinking water safe.”

 

The EPA water testing results for the creeks around the landfill can be found here:

 

But what about residents living in the suburbs north of Wyong?

 

Those residents, living near areas contaminated by PFAS (per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) - 'deadly 'forever chemicals' - fear they have unusually higher rates of cancer than elsewhere across the coast. Wyong and its surrounding areas have some of the highest rates of individual cancers, including colorectal cancer in men, which is 44 per cent above the state average, and lung cancer at 53 per cent above average for men and 43 per cent in women.

 

Yet, despite PFAS chemicals (PFAS, PFOA and PFOS} now having been found in unaccepted quantities elsewhere around the State, including the Sydney water catchment, the plight of Central Coast residents has become a ‘cry in the wilderness’ for help – lawmakers and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) are sweeping the problem under the carpet and ignoring the real concerns of the public, except to declare affected areas significantly contaminated sites. Yet all indications point to the issue being much greater with a proposed treatment plant needing ten years to fix the problem.

 

As previously reported by the Grapevine, it has been known that PFAS chemicals had migrated into the Tuggerah Lakes system. It is also known by our government and the EPA that PFAS has been linked to environmental and health issues, including some cancers, but a lot remains unknown about the true scale and potential impacts of the problem – including how much is in our water supply.

 

Gary Blaschke OAM. Spokesperson for community group Future Sooner, said, “The sexy environmental word in Sydney and beyond is now PFAS.

 

"Recently this toxic waste from fighting fires is being found in drinking water throughout the state with compensation payouts by the millions to residents of Wreck Bay and our front line fire fighters.

 

"The EPA has known about the problem in the Central Coast's northern suburbs since 2016-2017 if not earlier. They conducted fish studies in 2018 and found that everything is fine, as long as you don’t eat too much seafood from the lakes.

 

"It has now been a further eight years of seepage of PFAS into Munmorah and Budgewoi Lakes," Mr Blaschke said. "It take up to 520 days to circulate these waters and as far as the community is aware, no further specific tests have been conducted since."

 

It is not unreasonable to conclude that PFAS contamination of Central Coast waterways and ground water poses a serious problem, which has not reflected in EPA media releases.

 

Despite the Federal Government's PFAS Health Panel previously playing down the links between human health and PFAS exposure, the evidence has now become dynamic, yet authorities continue to bury their heads in the sand.

 

Today, PFAS still contaminates our waterways to a far greater extent than previously known. It is water that is used for drinking, agriculture, fishing, swimming and other activities. Downplaying the human health risks of PFAS exposure by our federal and state governments and the EPA, is not an option.

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