By Ben Cubby and Carrie Fellner
Sydney Water has confirmed for the first time that cancer-linked “forever chemicals” have been detected across the city’s drinking water catchments.
In quietly releasing data on its website, Sydney Water revealed that PFAS chemicals were detected in June at low levels in key water filtration plants, including Warragamba, Prospect Reservoir and Orchard Hills, and in higher levels at the Cascade Dam in the Blue Mountains and North Richmond.
Sydney Water conducted tests just two weeks after the Herald revealed evidence of past contamination of Sydney’s tap water and the lack of widespread routine monitoring for the chemicals.
Warragamba Dam provides about 80 per cent of Sydney’s drinking water supply. Testing has revealed trace levels of forever chemicals in the dam. Credit: Nick Moir
Asked about the results, a Sydney Water spokesperson revealed an apparent change in policy that it now conducts “monthly monitoring in potentially impacted areas”. It did not detail where.
Ian Wright, a water pollution expert at the University of Western Sydney, said: “I expect that these results will be quite confronting to many people.
“This also contradicts statements made by the authorities that there is no PFAS risk in the catchment. Without any doubt, further regular testing is needed and needs to be publicly reported.”
PFAS chemicals, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, have been used for decades to make products resistant to heat, stains, grease and water and have been a billion-dollar industrial powerhouse for Wall Street giant 3M.
The results show PFAS concentrations in the Sydney catchment are within Australia’s drinking water guidelines but above US safety thresholds.
Australia’s guidelines are under review after the US EPA’s dramatic policy shift in April deemed the chemicals were probable carcinogens and found there was no safe level of exposure.
Sydney Water’s long-held position on monitoring drinking water to date has been there are “no known PFAS hotspots in our drinking water catchments”, and the government has previously rejected the need for routine tap water monitoring.
Pressure continues to mount for an official inquiry into PFAS in Australia.
New research also shows for the first time high levels of PFAS in wildlife such as platypuses, and in areas of Sydney’s drinking water catchment where there are no known PFAS hotspots, suggesting the chemicals have spread.
Sydney Water said that “all samples tested are well below [Australian drinking water] guidelines” … and “monitoring of drinking water uses a risk-based approach”.
A study has detected PFAS chemicals in platypuses.
“There is regular consultation between Sydney Water, WaterNSW and NSW Health to assess any potential risk of PFAS or any other contaminant to Sydney’s drinking supply.”
Sydney Water conducted an additional round of sampling of the Cascade water filtration plant after levels of PFAS discovered at Katoomba and Blackheath were higher than those at the other sites.
The plant supplies drinking water to around 30,000 people in the middle and upper Blue Mountains.
The levels detected were quadruple the maximum limit at which PFAS must be removed from drinking water supplies in America.
Dr Nicholas Chartres, a senior research fellow from the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine and Health, said he was concerned the review of Australia’s drinking water guidelines could take months or years to be finalised.
Platypus researchers Michelle Ryan (left) and Katherine Warwick (right) study a monotreme.Credit: Nerida Taylor / Supplied
“There needs to be more urgency,” he said. “This is a symbolic representation of a lot of environmental health threats where the benefit of doubt is given to the polluter, and the public pays the consequences of that.”
He said the US EPA’s evaluation was the most rigorous conducted on PFAS and had canvassed at least 130 new epidemiological studies published since Australia’s guidelines were finalised in 2018.
Sydney Water’s monitoring in the catchment found no detectable levels of PFAS in water filtration plants in Macarthur, Nepean, the Illawarra or the Woronora River.
The synthetic chemicals accumulate in the environment, said Katherine Warwick, lead author of a new study that showed alarming levels of PFAS in the bodies of platypuses in coastal NSW, even those in seemingly pristine waterways.
“One of the biggest concerns to come out of our study is that some of the platypuses were found in areas where there is no known PFAS hotspot nearby,” said Warwick, a PhD student in the School of Science at the University of Western Sydney. “So the study has really highlighted how widespread it is.”
The researchers analysed the bodies of nine platypuses from different regions of NSW and found all the animals in the wild had traces of PFAS in their livers.
Only one animal was PFAS-free – a captive platypus that had died at Taronga Zoo, suggesting that filtered water in a controlled environment had prevented the contaminant from entering, the study said.
The levels of contamination varied wildly, from four micrograms per kilogram to over 1200 micrograms. One platypus found dead in the water catchment at Wingecarribee River near Berrima in NSW had 390 micrograms of PFAS chemicals per kilogram in its liver.
“The levels are very, very high,” said Dr Wright, who was also an author of the study, which was published in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
“This is the first study of its kind on platypuses and the first for any freshwater apex predator in the waterways of Australia.”
Separate research led by Warwick tested for PFAS and other contaminants in the drinking water catchment. It showed low levels of PFAS chemicals around sewage treatment plants from which treated water entered the catchment zone.
Higher levels of PFAS contamination were detected in river sediment close to the sewage treatment plants at Lithgow, Goulburn, Moss Vale, Mittagong and Bowral.
The health effects of high PFAS concentrations on the platypuses are unknown. Separate studies have shown links between PFAS contamination and ill health in other species, including damage to the liver and immune systems, low birth weight, birth defects, delayed development and newborn deaths.
PFAS is an umbrella term for a family of thousands of chemicals dubbed “forever chemicals” because they never break down in the environment. The chemicals discovered in Sydney’s drinking water catchments have historically been used in fabric protector, food packaging and firefighting foam.
Manufacturer 3M has agreed to pay up to $US10.3 billion ($15 billion) to clean up drinking water supplies in the United States after a mammoth lawsuit alleged it deceived the world for decades about the presence of forever chemicals in the general public’s blood.
Dr Mariann Lloyd-Smith, a toxic chemicals campaigner who has served on United Nations expert committees, said the Sydney catchment results demonstrated how essential widespread monitoring for PFAS is.
“The fact that they are being found at trace levels is no comfort,” she said.
“We now know these chemicals adversely impact everything from our children’s development to the integrity of our immune system and that there is no safe level of exposure, hence any exposure, even at trace levels, is a serious concern, particularly when we’re dealing with drinking water.”
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