A FORMER employee at a Cairnlea housing estate site is calling on the state government to intervene after residue of chemicals used to make explosives was found to have polluted groundwater in part of the suburb.
Last Thursday it was revealed the Environment Protection Authority was unsure how far contamination caused by the former Albion Explosives Factory had spread. The factory operated on the site from 1939 to 1986 and employed up to 1500 people during World War II.
Remediation works took place over a 20-year period before the site was redeveloped for housing by VicUrban.
Steven Daicos, who worked at the site in 2003, said he was disgusted that residents of the housing estate had not been told of the risk.
Mr Daicos claims his own health problems relate to his exposure to dangerous materials during remediation. He said he developed the skin condition chloracne after being exposed to contaminants, and he still suffers from vision and liver problems.
“The biggest issue is the fact the authority used the same company that dealt with the contamination initially to carry out tests after a complaint was made about the clean-up,” he said.
Mr Daicos said one of his co-workers had died from leukaemia, while another has problems with his liver and has developed muscle spasms.
An EPA spokeswoman said it was unable to say whether contaminated groundwater posed a health risk before a new report detailing the extent of pollution at the site was completed next year.
The EPA was strongly criticised in a series of letters from state Ombudsman George Brouwer for failures in monitoring the clean-up of the site. The Ombudsman’s investigation raised questions about the performance of the EPA in monitoring how large contaminated sites are dealt with.
His letters sent in 2011 to the EPA and obtained under a freedom-of-information request by Fairfax, reveal catalogue system failures at the authority, including in relation to the security of samples from contaminated sites. “The chain of custody forms related to the validation samples collected were not complete,” the Ombudsman found.
He also said the EPA had been unable to provide documents showing where contaminated material had been “removed, transported and deposited appropriately”.
The criticisms come as the government is planning a multibillion-dollar development at another former munitions factory site — the 128-hectare former defence complex in Maribyrnong.
The EPA spokeswoman said the Cairnlea site went through an environmental audit process before development occurred.
“The area is a very large tract of land and, as such, remediation has occurred progressively,” she said.
“There are only a few remaining non-residential areas left where the audits need to be completed.” She said groundwater was the “final piece of this puzzle”, and she urged residents not to access or use groundwater.
Western Metropolitan Greens MP Colleen Hartland called on the government to report on progress relating to the Ombudsman’s recommendations before the end of the year.
—with Jason Dowling
