THE Department of Defence will undertake preliminary testing to determine whether firefighting foam used at RAAF Base Tindal for 16 years has contaminated surrounding water and soil.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
As the fallout from a scathing Senate inquiry into the handling of contamination at a base in New South Wales continues, the Department of Defence has announced it will take “approximately 10 samples” from public and private bores around RAAF Base Tindal in the next month.
The testing will focus on the aqueous film-forming foam used at the base from 1988 until 2004.
Components of the foam – perfluorooctane sulfonate and perfluorooctanoic acid – have been deemed “emerging contaminants” that are potentially harmful to humans and the environment.
RAAF Base Tindal will be tested as one of 16 sites the Department of Defence has “identified as a priority for further investigation”, based on an “understanding of how AFFF was used at each site and any information known about water use and hydrogeology in the area”.
A community forum will be held at the Katherine Town Council chambers at 6pm on June 1 to outline the process involved.
A Department of Defence spokesperson said that once the testing had been completed, a decision would be made on whether full-scale sampling was warranted.
“The objective of the preliminary sampling is to inform decision making about whether further investigation will be required,” the spokesperson said.
While it remains unclear whether the use of AFFF has had an adverse effect on the groundwater, surface water and soil around the Katherine base, the Department of Defence was savaged in the Inquiry into firefighting foam contamination Part A – RAAF Base Williamtown for its delay in informing the community about the problem.
Contamination was first detected on the base in 2012, but the community was not officially advised until 2015.
Public access to test results unclear
In a submission to the inquiry, Port Stephens Council said the base’s status as a Commonwealth facility had led to a breakdown in communication between the three tiers of government and an absence of legitimate environmental regulation.
“It appears that Defence is a self-regulating entity without any oversight from an independent environmental regulator,” the submission reads.
The Department of Defence refused to reveal which locations testing would be carried out in locally, but the spokesperson said the results would be provided to landholders and the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority.
However, the spokesperson would not clarify how much information would be publicly available.
“Defence will continue to engage with the Katherine community,” the spokesperson said.
“The community information session will provide the community with an introduction to Defence’s perfluorinated compounds environmental investigation program and detailed information in relation to the preliminary sampling to be undertaken near the base.”
Evidence submitted to the inquiry showed PFOS and PFOA resisted typical environmental degradation, and that the chemicals could “migrate readily from soil to groundwater [and] … be transported long distances”.
The testing will be completed by the end of June.
Read the Senate inquiry’s report here.