The Media

Sydney Water Board [3] engineers and their consultants argued that toxic waste did not accumulate in the sediments off Sydney's coastline and the deepwater outfalls would provide sufficient dilution and dispersion to ensure toxic waste would not be a problem. The data obtained from the study was to help the Water Board select organisms for inclusion in their environmental monitoring programme for the deepwater outfalls and to enable the Board to evaluate the beneficial effects of diverting the effluent into deeper water.[4]

In December 1987 results of the study, shown in Tables 1&2, were presented to the Clean Waters Advisory Committee which is an advisory committee to the State Pollution Control Commission.[5] Various State government departments and statutory boards are represented on the Clean Waters Advisory Committee including the Sydney Water Board, the Department of Health, the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Department of Planning and Environment. All would have received the business papers containing the results of the Bioaccumulation Study. The Minister was almost certainly informed.

The study found large amounts of organochlorines in red morwong and blue groper caught near the Malabar outfall. The levels of metals in the fish caught at Malabar were mostly below NH&MRC limits but the Committee was told that this indicated that a negative correlation between organochlorines and trace metals in fish was likely. Evidence of a similar negative correlation had been obtained in fish off the Southern Californian coast.[6]

The results were potentially very damaging to the Water Board. Not only did they indicate a failure of the Board's Trade Waste Policy but they suggested that toxic waste had in fact been accumulating in the seabed sediments. The SPCC could not avoid some blame for the situation as the agency that was supposed to be regulating what the Board was putting into the ocean.

There was disagreement over whether the results should be released. A meeting between senior officers of the Water Board and the SPCC was held in May 1988 to discuss the study. At the meeting, according to notes made of it by the SPCC, it was recognised that "spearfishermen consuming red morwong caught at Malabar could be at some health risk."[7] The "question of public responsibility and the desirability of releasing the data" was discussed at length and the SPCC officers said that they thought the information indicated "potential health consequences".

The Water Board argued that the study should not be published because it was not conclusive and this view prevailed; the study was not released. The Board's planning manager later told the magazine Engineers Australia:

The criticism that by withholding the study results the board was potentially putting public health at risk had to be weighed up against the risk of causing unwarranted public concern and panic.[8]

The first public indication that the study had been done came in September 1988 when the Herald received a tip-off and published a very small item reporting that two fish species off the coast of Malabar had been found to have traces of organochlorine pesticides in them. The deputy director of the SPCC, who had the advantage of interpreting data not available to the public, was reported as saying that "the concentration of the chemical [BHC] in the species was low and not a cause for concern."[9] (This was the chemical that was on average 122 times the NH&MRC limit.)

"The point I would emphasise is that the levels are higher than we would like to see but only in a small number of samples taken," he said.

But we have been troubled by the detection of the chemicals in some of the samples, the very fact they are there is troubling us."[10]

The Australian Underwater Federation immediately wrote to the SPCC to get the results of the study because of the ramifications for recreational fishermen, some of whom were members of their Federation. Their letter explained that they regularly held spearfishing competitions.

At these events, the competitors have found that certain species caught near outfalls have mushy, tainted flesh. The worst species is the red morwong, Cheilodactylus fuscus which they refuse now to eat.[11]

The Federation was not informed of the results of the study despite the concerns of the SPCC officers about public responsibility. The SPCC annual report [12] mentioned the bioaccumulation study but, under pressure from the Minister for the Environment, gave no indication of any contamination.

Competing spearfishermen were not the only ones catching fish near the outfalls. Rock fishing is a popular pastime in Sydney and these people can catch large quantities of fish which they take home to their families and sell to fish shops and restaurants eager for freshly caught fish. It was not till the Herald was leaked the full results in January 1989,[13] that these people were informed of the real extent of the contamination of the fish.

One person who was particularly concerned about this lack of public information was a woman whose husband had become a keen amateur fisherman. He had caught fish between North Head (site of Sydney's second largest outfall) and Long Reef and they had eaten fish three times a week for about three years until they read the Herald reports. The previous year her daughter had been born with severe and very rare abnormalities that were thought by two specialists to be genetically based, possibly a mutation caused by chemicals. The woman wrote to all Water Board members and State Pollution Control Commission members and various politicians to express her concerns. She said in that letter,

Because so few pregnant women in Sydney have eaten as much local fish as I did, it is impossible to establish whether there is an epidemiological link.

Cases such as my daughter's highlight the value of open public discussion and access to information. Had I known that Sydney's industrial waste went directly through the sewage system, or that there was evidence of toxins in fish caught in Sydney, I never would have eaten them. If I had not eaten them, the doubt about my daughter's abnormalities, however slight these may be, would not exist. If I had not eaten them, the concerns about the possible long term affects on my family's health would not exist.[14]

A ban on fishing within 500m of the sewage outfalls was announced on the 24th February by the Minister for Agriculture and the Government also increased fines for selling fish on the black market. The Herald reported that the Minister still maintained that there was "conflicting evidence" on the level of contamination off sewage outfalls and said that the ban was temporary whilst more evidence was collected.[15]

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1. The State Pollution Control Commission, SPCC, is the regulatory agency for all pollution matters in the State of New South Wales.
2. The Federal government in Australia has few powers to protect the environment. for the full story see Sharon Beder, Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing, Allen & Unwin, 1989.
3. The Water Board is responsible for the provision of water and sewerage to the Sydney region. It is regulated by the SPCC.
4. Clean Waters Advisory Committee Meeting, Business Papers, 10 September 1987.
5. Clean Waters Advisory Committee Meeting, Business Papers, 10 December 1987.
6. ibid.
7. Bioaccumulation of Organochlorine Pesticides Near the Malabar Ocean Outfall, Meeting Notes, 18/5/88.
8. Dietrich Georg, 'Engineers Criticised for not Going Public on Pollution', Engineers Australia, 26th January 1990, p16.
9. Sydney Morning Herald, 27th September 1988.
10. ibid.
11. letter from Australian Underwater Federation to W. Forrest, Deputy Director, SPCC.
12. SPCC, Annual Report 1987-88, p30.
13. Sydney Morning Herald, 7/1/89.
14. personal correspondence, 6/3/89.
15. Sydney Morning Herald, 24th February 1989.

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