The Guardian 26 April, 2006
Sydney Harbour poisoned
Peter Mac
The health of people who have been eating fish and shellfish caught in Sydney Harbour, is now known to be under a major threat from industrial pollution.
Last week the ABC’s 7.30 Report revealed the results of tests carried out in Germany on tissue samples taken from fishermen who formerly worked in the Harbour. The tests show a tremendously high level of toxic elements present in the body of one elderly fisherman, but also a highly worrying level in his six-year-old grandson, both of whom frequently ate fish and shellfish from the Harbour.
Before the 2001 Olympics were held at Sydney’s Homebush Bay, massive earth works were carried out to ensure that people using the Games complex, and its associated housing, were not affected by toxic wastes. (It’s still not clear whether these measures were entirely effective).
These wastes included the dioxin TCDD, a component of the defoliant Agent Orange, which was used as a horrific weapon of war by the US in Vietnam during the 1970s, and which is still causing birth defects, immune disorders and cancer within the Vietnamese population.
These toxins are known to have entered the ground for decades from Union Carbide’s former industrial complex at Homebush Bay. The toxins also entered the waters of Sydney Harbour and the Parramatta River. Fishing from the Harbour was banned last January.
Scientific tests have even revealed these chemicals to be present at Rose Bay, 23 kilometres down harbour, where the toxicity level is 1.5 times the estimated safe limit. However, at Silverwater, close to Homebush Bay, the level is a massive eight times the safe limit.
Despite the obvious threat to public health posed by the Harbour pollution, until last week the NSW Government refused to carry out tests on people such as the fishermen, whose diets frequently included a large component of harbour fish.
However, the 7.30 Report revealed that an elderly fisherman had ten times the level of this toxicity compared with the average Australian adult. His grandson’s level was seven times the average.
These revelations prompted a sudden vigorous reaction from the Iemma Government, which announced that they were offering tests to all Harbour fishermen and their families.
This at least demonstrates an acknowledgment of responsibility for public health (albeit grudging), as well as an acknowledgement, (albeit very late in the day), for government failure to adequately control Union Carbide’s industrial activities.
But where does the buck stop? To date there has been little public discussion about Union Carbide itself, the corporation whose malfunctioning plant in Bhopal, India, exploded 20years ago, killing and maiming thousands of workers and nearby residents. That corporation surely carries the major responsibility for pollution arising from its industrial activities at Homebush Bay.
But that’s not all. Was Agent Orange itself actually produced at Homebush Bay, for use during the Vietnam War? If so, should not a large measure of responsibility for the looming Homebush Bay horror be accepted by the US Government, which commissioned its use? And if so, does not some responsibility also rest with the former Liberal/Country Party Government, which never criticised the use of Agent Orange, but enthusiastically endorsed every US war initiative, just as the present Howard Government does?