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Inquiry Into the Management of PFAS Contamination in and Around Defence Bases

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Inquiry Into the Management of PFAS Contamination in and Around Defence Bases PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Inquiry into the management of PFAS contamination in and around Defence bases Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade © Commonwealth of Australia ISBN 978-1-74366-909-9 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-74366-910-5 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Contents Foreword .......................................................................................................................................... vii Members ............................................................................................................................................ ix Terms of Reference .......................................................................................................................... xv Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................. xvii List of Recommendations .............................................................................................................. xix The Report 1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 Conduct of the inquiry ......................................................................................................... 2 Report structure ..................................................................................................................... 2 Context of the inquiry ........................................................................................................... 3 About PFAS ............................................................................................................... 3 Recognition of PFAS as a pollutant ........................................................................ 6 Intergovernmental agreement on PFAS ................................................................ 7 2016 Senate committee reports ................................................................................ 8 2 Contamination and remediation ........................................................................ 13 Extent of contamination ..................................................................................................... 13 Defence investigation and management ............................................................. 14 Extent of contamination around specific bases................................................... 20 Contamination of non-Defence related sites ....................................................... 36 iii iv Remediation ......................................................................................................................... 38 The Government’s approach to date .................................................................... 41 Remediation in other jurisdictions ....................................................................... 46 Research into remediation technologies .............................................................. 46 Continued use of contaminated bore water ........................................................ 48 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 50 3 Health advice and testing..................................................................................... 55 Concerns about the health effects of PFAS ...................................................................... 55 Health advice to affected communities ............................................................................ 58 Current Australian advice regarding the health impacts of PFAS .................. 58 Expert health panel ................................................................................................. 60 Is Australia’s health advice up to date? ............................................................... 63 Communication of health advice .......................................................................... 65 Response from the Government ........................................................................... 67 Blood testing and epidemiological study ........................................................................ 68 Epidemiological study ........................................................................................... 68 Voluntary blood testing program ......................................................................... 69 Concerns about low participation ........................................................................ 72 Adequacy of current blood testing program to meet its objectives ................. 74 Other proposed studies .......................................................................................... 75 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 76 4 Financial impacts ................................................................................................... 79 Financial impacts reported by communities ................................................................... 79 Impacts on businesses ............................................................................................ 80 Impacts on individuals ........................................................................................... 81 Related impacts on the community .................................................................................. 87 Claims for compensation ................................................................................................... 90 Class actions ............................................................................................................ 91 Non-litigated claims ............................................................................................... 92 v State, territory and local government submissions ........................................................ 92 Consideration by the Government ................................................................................... 94 Committee comment .......................................................................................................... 97 5 Communication and coordination ................................................................... 101 Australian Government response to date ...................................................................... 101 Coordination between government agencies ................................................................ 103 The Intergovernmental Agreement .................................................................... 105 Other communication and coordination between governments ................... 107 State and territory government submissions .................................................... 108 Local government submissions ........................................................................... 113 Community views .............................................................................................. 1145 Communication with local communities, businesses and other stakeholders ......... 116 The Government’s current approach ................................................................. 116 State, territory and local government views ..................................................... 119 Notifications to communities .............................................................................. 121 Lack of trust in government information .......................................................... 122 Community meetings ........................................................................................... 123 Other communications ......................................................................................... 124 Committee comment ........................................................................................................ 125 6 Standards and legislation .................................................................................. 129 Environmental and human health standards ................................................................ 129 Health-based guidance values ............................................................................ 129 Food standards ...................................................................................................... 131 Environmental management ............................................................................... 133 Measures to regulate and phase out PFAS .................................................................... 133 PFAS regulation in Australia .............................................................................. 134 Current bans and phase-outs .............................................................................. 136 Stakeholder views ................................................................................................. 139 vi Environmental regulation of Commonwealth land ..................................................... 143 Cross-jurisdictional issues ................................................................................... 143 ‘Self-regulation’ by Department of Defence ...................................................... 145 Response from the Government ........................................................................
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