Cancer-causing chemicals a ‘dirty little secret’ in tourist hotspot

Federal authorities have been accused of profiting off the hundreds of thousands of visitors to NSW’s picturesque Jervis Bay region each year without sufficiently warning them about cancer-causing toxins in the area.

Speaking at a Senate inquiry into so-called “forever chemicals”, members of a local Aboriginal village blamed per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS) for devastating levels of sickness and death. One man revealed his body was full of tumours after playing in contaminated waters as a child.

Authorities have been accused of failing to do enough to make visitors to Jervis Bay aware of cancer-causing contaminants. Credit: Rhett Wyman

The inquiry travelled to the South Coast this week to examine the chemicals’ toll on the Aboriginal community of Wreck Bay.

Wreck Bay is nestled within Booderee National Park, which sees hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Its popular Green Patch camping ground is booked out months in advance during warm weather.

The nearby world-famous white sands of Hyams Beach are a bucket-list destination for domestic and international visitors.

An investigation by this masthead and Stan documentary How to Poison a Planet previously revealed Wreck Bay has some of Australia’s highest rates of premature loss of life.

Waterways near the village and throughout Booderee have been contaminated with forever chemicals used in firefighting foam at a neighbouring Defence base.

One of those chemicals was recently declared carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation.

Wreck Bay community member Darren Brown told the senators the region had been “over-advertised” to tourists, which brought economic benefits, but many were unaware of its contamination.

Wreck Bay community members at a public inquiry on Tuesday. Credit: Sylvia Liber

“There’s this hidden … little evil lurking there that we all know, but they don’t want to put it out there,” Brown said.

“Don’t sugar-coat the fact, the underlying issue, that land is contaminated.”

Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council chair Annette Brown accused the Commonwealth of failing to address the contamination transparently.

“Defence is allowed to continue to contaminate the region and the Department of Environment continually invites tourists in and makes money out of them,” she said.

“No one is accountable for a uniformed approach to making the levels of contamination public. The Commonwealth and agencies sit silently and think that a one-page newsletter is satisfactory.”

Inquiry chair Lidia Thorpe described the testimony as shocking.

Senator Lidia Thorpe described the testimony as “shocking”.Credit: Sylvia Liber

“Wreck Bay mob knows, the navy boys [know], this is a dirty little secret,” the independent senator said.

Former Wreck Bay resident Keiron Brown recalled leaping into contaminated water as a child.

“Now as an adult I have got a body full of benign tumours,” he said. “We’re not sure if any of them are cancerous.”

Brown’s mother passed away when he was seven from a rare and aggressive cancer in her eye.

Another resident, Clive Freeman, argued Defence should not be left to investigate itself after knowing about the problem since the 1980s.

Defence acting associate secretary Celia Perkins said it had spent $850 million addressing PFAS at its sites and was committed to stopping contaminated run-off and continuing remediation work at Wreck Bay.

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