TEARS well in David King’s eyes as he reels off the names of former workmates who died of cancer after working with radioactive oil and toxic chemicals at a Newport site.
There are community calls for the site – Jack Madigan Reserve on the corner of Challis and Mason streets – to be considered for a community garden.
Sunshine West’s Mr King, 57, has cancer, too. Of his 27 former workmates, he said 16 died from cancer. So did his wife, who washed his dirty work clothes.
During World War II, Australia’s navy used the site to store ship oil underground. According to public records, the site was later used as a solid landfill tip.
Mr King, who worked as a Defence Department driver transporting chemicals from Williamstown’s former dockyards to the site, said this information was “totally wrong”.
“I went to the EPA in the early ’90s and I had a list of all the chemicals that went into that hole and told them,” he said. “They said they couldn’t do anything because it was a defence force site.
“And many, many drums of chemicals and paints that were out of date in rusty tins … when they were thrown in there, they just burst open on impact in the bottom of the hole.
“In the early ’90s I got sick, went off . . . to hospital and was diagnosed with cancer – carcinoid syndrome, which is very rare.
“Another thing that worries me is that I used to come home in my overalls . . . with, like, asbestos and things on my clothes, and played with my children, who were young at the time. And my wife also washed those clothes. She died two years ago of cancer.”
Hobsons Bay council and the Environment Protection Authority have given conflicting views.
Mayor Angela Altair said: ‘‘Jack Madigan Reserve does not pose a threat to community safety.’’
The EPA said an independent audit was still under review.
