{"id":29134,"date":"2024-09-17T05:09:38","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T05:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=29134"},"modified":"2024-09-17T05:09:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T05:09:38","slug":"greens-to-move-for-parliamentary-inquiry-into-pfas-forever-chemicals-in-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2024\/09\/17\/greens-to-move-for-parliamentary-inquiry-into-pfas-forever-chemicals-in-water\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens to move for Parliamentary Inquiry into PFAS \u2018Forever Chemicals\u2019 in Water"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Greens will move for an urgent Upper House Inquiry this week after more revelations<\/a>that cancer-linked forever chemicals have been detected in Sydney\u2019s drinking water catchment – this time well above Australian drinking water guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New testing has found alarming levels of PFAS concentrations downstream of Medlow Dam in the Blue Mountains at 200 times higher than the guidelines – and upstream at more than 50 times the guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2023, the World Health Organisation concluded that forever chemicals are carcinogenic. There is no safe level of exposure without a risk of adverse health effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Health Minister needs to come clean about exactly what\u2019s in Sydney\u2019s drinking water. As recently as Budget Estimates last week, Minister Park said that Sydney\u2019s drinking water is safe, yet now we have independent testing showing PFAS concentrations well above the drinking water guidelines,\u201d said Greens MP and water spokesperson Cate Faehrmann<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wrote to the Health and Water Ministers back in June seeking urgent independent testing which they refused to do. Then last week, I was informed that as a result of recent media investigations, Sydney Water and WaterNSW have added PFAS monitoring to their testing procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have to take media exposure before the government acts, yet that\u2019s exactly what\u2019s happening. And the public shouldn\u2019t have to rely upon independent testing for the truth to come out about what exactly is in their drinking water and whether it\u2019s safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMembers of the public are writing to me in confusion and distress. They don\u2019t know whether they should be drinking the water coming out of their taps. Meanwhile the government says it still doesn\u2019t know the source of the PFAS and it could take months before they do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not good enough. The Government can\u2019t be trusted to tell the public everything they need to know about this issue. The public deserves answers and that\u2019s why I\u2019ll be moving for an urgent Parliamentary Inquiry into this issue this week,\u201d said Cate Faehrmann.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Greens will move for an urgent Upper House Inquiry this week after more revelationsthat cancer-linked forever chemicals have been detected in Sydney\u2019s drinking water catchment – this time well above Australian drinking water guidelines. New testing has found alarming levels of PFAS concentrations downstream of Medlow Dam in the Blue Mountains at 200 times higher … Continue reading “Greens to move for Parliamentary Inquiry into PFAS \u2018Forever Chemicals\u2019 in Water”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29135,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29134\/revisions\/29135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}