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 ........................................................................