A recent GIPA request to Bathurst Regional Council has revealed that the Council has detected PFAS chemicals in its drinking water supply numerous times since 2017. The GIPA request also reveals that the monitoring conducted by Bathurst Regional Council is much more thorough than that done by Sydney Water in 2024.
The GIPA request found that Bathurst Regional Council test for PFAS chemicals at two locations. One location being the Bathurst Water Filtration plant and the other location 3km upstream of the filtration plant at Montavella Road.
Bathurst Council has been testing for PFAS chemicals since 2017. No detections breached the current Australian drinking water guidelines, but two detections breached the proposed PFOS guideline of 4ng/L at Montavella Road with one detection being 10 times higher than the proposed guideline level in August 2020.
At the water filtration plant, there were two breaches to the proposed PFOS guideline level in June 2017. One detection of 30ng/L was 7.5 times the proposed guideline level. Another PFOS detection of 6ng/L occurred in August 2017. It is unclear if residents in Bathurst were drinking PFOS at these levels.
38 detections of PFAS chemicals occurred at the water filtration plant between 2017-24, with 35 detections at Montavella Road. Most of the detections at both sites consisted of the short chain PFAS chemicals PFHxA, PFHpA and PFPeA. Almost 80% of all detections consisted of these three chemicals. There are no drinking water guidelines for these three chemicals and none proposed by the National Health and Medical Research Council. A total of 13 different PFAS chemicals have been detected by the Bathurst Council.
Detections were most frequent in 2017 and 2018 with only two detections at the water filtration plant since March 2021 and none from Montavella in the same time period. Over a 7 year average PFOS was detected at the water filtration plant at about 10% of the proposed PFOS guideline level.
Friends of the Earth spokesperson Anthony Amis said "It is encouraging to see the Council taking a proactive approach to monitoring for PFAS chemicals. It is odd that Bathurst Council has been doing a much more thorough job than Sydney Water. Bathurst Council is testing for ten times the number of PFAS chemicals than Sydney Water. It is a worry though that these chemicals are entering waterways. Where are these chemicals coming from? It is also worrying that short chain PFAS chemicals are currently not being taken seriously as water pollutants or of health concern by regulators."
Mr Amis added "The catchment upstream from Bathurst's water filtration plant is dominated by farmland. Ben Chifley Dam is located 15km south east of Bathurst. PFAS detected at the water treatment plant is likely to either come from the dam itself or from landuse between the dam and the water treatment plant.
If the farmland is the source of the pollution, what ramifications does this have for other agricultural regions of Australia? Has there been fire fighting foam used in the catchment or is the source of the pollution coming from agricultural chemicals.
Hundreds of pesticides registered for use in Australia are fluorinated. Recent research from Europe is also indicating that the fluorinated chemical trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is mostly detected in agricultural areas. Noone in Australia is testing for TFA.
What impact is PFAS having on the ecology of waterways across much of Australia?" Mr Amis concluded.
