A HARD-FOUGHT battle by north Lake Macquarie residents campaigning for the clean up of industrial pollution spread across three suburbs has gained widespread support from Lake Macquarie City councillors.
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After no councillors attended a public meeting called by Boolaroo Action Group on the contamination issue earlier this month, residents were heartened by the support.
Several councillors spoke on the matter at last Monday's meeting, after Cr Jason Pauling, who was overseas at the time of the public meeting, raised a motion in support of the residents.
Cr Brian Adamthwaite said he hoped it was "reassuring for the community that we are more or less speaking with one voice tonight".
"We need to again deal with this legacy issue, we need to recognise for nearly a century a corporate body made profits from this operation and state governments of all complexions have all collected taxes," he said.
"So we know what has created this, where the problem lies and we know the state government is responsible for coming up with a solution, but we as councillors on Lake Macquarie council need to be concerned and caring for the community and the issues they raise."
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At the public meeting, residents voted unanimously on six resolutions that Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper agreed to take to the NSW government. They included scrapping proposed changes to council's development control plan that will make a blanket "assumption" that thousands of residential properties within a lead contamination grid, drawn up in 1995, are polluted by lead from the Pasminco smelter that closed in 2003.
Deputy mayor David Belcher said there was an "unfair impost on the residents", when it should be the state government and polluter taking responsibility.
Cr Wendy Harrison, who served on the Lead Community Reference Group that investigated the contamination, was the only councillor to vote against the motion.
She argued the issue was "going along ok" until the public meeting. "That does concern me that we're changing everything because of that meeting the other night and I think there was some misinformation circulated," she said,
Boolaroo Action Group spokesman Jim Sullivan said he was "gobsmacked" by the allegation. "All of the information provided at the meeting was factual and backed up with documentary evidence," he said.
"There was no misinformation, it was factual information that received the support of everyone in the room. The resolutions are not unlike the ones Greg Piper came back with after visiting the clean up of a lead contaminated community in the United States."