Oakey water contamination: Politicians need to provide answers

IT’S a huge scandal ... lawsuits filed, a state of emergency declared and the nation’s leader steps in. But that’s in the US. In Australia, political leaders are ignoring a similar situation right under their noses.

• Thousands exposed to toxic bore
• Editorial: Defence betraying people of Oakey
• Groundwater contaminated by Army’s toxic foam
• Residents told land is worthless

SYSTEMIC breakdown in any public service should not be allowed to fester, be ignored and actually compound over decades.

However, that’s just what’s happened in Oakey, a military town up on the ranges west of Toowoomba.

The air force firefighters in Oakey have been using toxic foams for decades, causing poisons to enter the groundwater of the town and leading to levels of these toxins to be found up to 18 times the average in people exposed to the contamination.

It is a national scandal — made worse this week by news that between 2008 and 2012 authorities in the town added contaminated bore water to the town’s drinking water during the drought, creating a genuinely toxic “shandy”.

What is unacceptable and why this should now become an election issue is the inability and refusal of federal and state politicians to do anything — allowing bureaucrats in the defence and other departments to blithely say “nothing to see here”.

This is despite the fact these toxic foams were used for 35 years — from 1970 to 2005.

Let’s compare and contrast what has happened in Oakey with another water contamination scandal in the United States in the last two years.

In 2014 in Flint, Michigan, a change to the water source from a treatment plant to the Flint River allowed water contaminated with lead to be consumed in the town.

The contamination caused pipes to corrode and poisoned water to leach into the local supply, leading to thousands of children and infants to experience deadly levels of lead exposure.

A related outbreak of legionnaires disease led to 10 deaths and grave illness among 77 others.

Unlike Oakey, where official reaction was glacial, in Michigan things happened quickly.

Lawsuits were filed and authorities at all levels took responsibility. The mayor declared a city wide state of public health emergency and soon after the Michigan governor declared the whole county to be in a state of emergency — which included the establishment of an information centre to answer all questions and follow up on public concern

Within three months early this year the state had a 75 point plan to tackle the crisis.

Even President Barack Obama became involved, declaring a major disaster designation for the county in January which allowed the immediate ability to seek federal financial aid for emergency assistance and infrastructure repair in order to “protect the health, safety and welfare of Flint residents”.

The people of Oakey have a right to ask why nothing like this has happened in their case.

All politicians with any connection to what’s happening in Oakey — local and federal and the respective spokesmen and women for defence and environment — should start asking questions and provide answers.

Originally published as Oakey water contamination: Politicians need to provide answers