RESEARCHERS should also look into why the designated ‘‘fallout’’ zone for the soil tests, blood tests and ‘‘abatement’’ program suddenly stops at Winding and Brush Creeks, effectively shutting out about three-quarters of the contaminated areas from those original tests. At the same time there were unaffected areas included in the ‘‘contamination area’’.
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As if the pollution from the Sulphides/Pasminco recognises creeks as an ‘‘official’’ EPA/Ferrier Hodgson border that it’s not allowed to pass over.
There are thousands of lead-contaminated properties around Edgeworth, Glendale, Cardiff and Warners Bay that haven’t even been looked at.
One only has to consider the prevailing winds and the heights of the stacks to see where most of the pollutants were going.
And then there’s the untouched and side-lined issues of all those thousands of tonnes of slag, ash and chitter from the lead/zinc/silver smelters that were spread around the Lower Hunter up until the late 1970s early ’80s.
And let’s not mention the acid rain, acid run-offs and heavy metal contaminations at the time.
David Laurie, Glendale
