Subject: CONTAMINATION of a reservoir by herbicides-----
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 07:17:09 -0500
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State
of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
cc: Carol Browner browner.carol@epa.gov
Dear Mr. Helliker,
I thought you might like to read an article entitled: Reservoir
pollution first of its kind - it was in The Advertiser, By COLIN JAMES -
29jan01.
CONTAMINATION of a reservoir by herbicides from a nearby
State Government-owned forest was the biggest incident of its kind in
Australia, it has been revealed.
An SA Water investigation into the pollution throughout
1997 of the Warren Reservoir by chemicals used by Forestry SA could find no
comparable incidents interstate or overseas.
The inquiry traced large quantities of Atrazine and
Hexazinone in the reservoir to clay pellets dropped by helicopters on new pine
plantations at the nearby Mt Crawford Forest.
The Advertiser on Wednesday reported how the Environment
Protection Authority ordered Forestry SA in August, 1998, to stop using the
herbicides after it received the results of the investigation.
SA Water staff involved with the inquiry have told The
Advertiser there had been no other incident in Australia where similar
quantities of herbicides had leached into reservoirs through creeks and
streams.
Heavy rain washed dissolved quantities of the herbicides
into the waterways, where the chemicals eventually ended up in the Warren
Reservoir.
Diluted amounts then spread into the Barossa and Little
Para reservoirs before being removed through expensive treatment processes at
the Little Para water filtration plant.
"It was an unusual set of circumstances which, when
we looked, we couldn't find had happened anywhere else in Australia or around
the world," one SA Water manager said.
The water had to be treated with an expensive cleanser,
powdered activated carbon, before it could be released for consumption in
townships including Gawler and the Barossa Valley.
Attempts by SA Water to recover the cost of the treatment
from Forestry SA were dropped after intervention by Government Enterprises
Minister Michael Armitage.
Three government departments, SA Water, the Environment
Protection Authority and the Department for Human Services, spent several
months advising Dr Armitage on whether the contamination posed a risk to human
safety and how the water could be treated.
Confidential briefings were provided to Dr Armitage, who
agreed with departmental advisers that no public notification was required as
levels of the herbicides were below guidelines set by the National Health and
Medical Research Council.
In a letter to Forestry SA general manager Ian Millard on
August 3, 1998, then EPA director Rob Thomas said the authority supported
national water management policies which recommended the "concentration
of any pesticide in water supply systems should be below detection
levels".
The EPA later issued a public warning after levels of
Atrazine and Hexazinone in creeks and streams feeding into the reservoir
system were found to be six times above the NHMRC guidelines.
Well, Mr. Helliker, It always amazes me when someone
in authority makes statements like: "we couldn't find (this kind of
CONTAMINATION) had happened anywhere else in Australia or around the
world," Several years ago I
wrote the following:
Too often, the community is not even aware of the
use of this (restricted-use "registered") poison in public areas.
It is extremely important to be vigilant when there is the prospect of such
chemicals being used in the local community. With the corporatisation of
forest agencies, and their hunger for short-term profits and reluctance to
date to investigate environmentally-safe weed control, the 'chemical option'
remains very attractive to them.
Forestry Tasmania is one such agency which has
sprayed Atrazine in water catchment areas after clearfelling areas of forest
or plantation. Twenty days after one such instance, Atrazine was found in
the town of Derby's tap-water. Manufacturer, Ciba Geigy has tried very hard
through the media to claim that Atrazine couldn't harm anyone, yet is unable
to explain outbreaks of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in Italy (Europe in general
has for years been getting Atrazine fog), or bowel cancer in Kansas in the
U.S. (which is subjected to Atrazine rain, has 75% of its water bores
contaminated with the stuff and uses identification of Atrazine residues in
food imports as a trade barrier). Info from the manufacturer itself shows
that metabolites of Atrazine (i.e., what it breaks down into in the
ecosystem), are more than twice as toxic as the original compound.
The Tasmanian foresters declared a moratorium on
Atrazine (and Simazine) use until 1997, and have invested $200,000 in the
investigation of alternatives to chemical use in plantations. Super-heated
steam is one option being examined by Councils to control weeds (such as
Sydney's Leichhardt Council). However, there are many more chemicals 'out
there' which need to be subjected to closer community scrutiny.
Now, when I LOOK at a map, Tasmania is rather near
Australia and if I knew the above dangers of using Atrazine about 5 years ago,
do you really beLIEve the SA Water "investigation" really
"looked" for any other examples of Atrazine CONTAMINATION? Until "regulators" begin to "look" (at
least to try to look) we all will continue to drink Atrazine and MANY of your
other "registered" POISONS!
Respectfully, Stephen
L. Tvedten
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