Reply to the 'whole of government'...

this page under review

We have not received even an acknowledgement from these Public Servants to our email, sent in response to their minimalistic and disrespectfully dismissive reply to our deep concerns. 

 

3 September, 2014 

Dear All,

This really is a pretty poor effort, isn't it? You must have all had a good chuckle putting together this page of obfuscation and then grandly signing your names to nothing at the bottom. Have you really nothing more to add? No answers at all.

• The supposed roof on the crusher? What about that?
• Can we see the research and reports regarding the dust amelioration capabilities of the newly-installed "roof"?
• Is it negatively pressurised to preclude further emissions to the Costerfield community? Can it be completely sealed?
• Is there a purpose-built dust extraction system?
• On whose recommendation was this type of roof installed? Are they used for this purpose elsewhere? To what effect?
• Has there been any monitoring undertaken to gauge its effectiveness here? If so, how was the dust emission baseline prior to the roof's construction calculated?
• Is monitoring taking place near the crusher to trace any PM10 and PM2.5 respirable particles?
• Was it installed after the submission of a work plan variation? If so, can we see a copy, please?
• If it's so good, I'd really like to see a write-up on its efficacy and specs in the next Antimony Community Update. If you're proud of it, please tell us why!

And where in the Antimony Community Update is the reference to the defamatory accusations against the doctors who collected the initial round of urine samples? They did not use the incorrect bottles, did they?

Did they? Come on. A yes or no. And then a retraction [sic]. That would be the honourable thing to do. The honest thing to do. You were asked a very reasonable question.

Refraining from telling the community the truth is tantamount to a lie.

Just not good enough for Public Servants. You are, by your actions (and/or inactions) actually proving the case we are making regarding the regulatory authorities' aloofness and disconnectedness from the Victorian Community they are supposed to serve. We are asking - and you are fully aware that Mr Helps is asking on our behalf - for answers. These are not answers. This is the usual bureaucratic evasion we receive when we want our regulators to provide us with vital information to which we have a right. Tell us what is going on. The banalities in the Community Update are an insult to those of us who are genuinely and justifiably concerned about events in Costerfield this year (and in 1998... and 2003-2006... and, and, and).

As Dr Perrin has already written: "This Antimony exposure would appear to be Industrial Contamination until such time as all positive urine tests are formally corrected OR retracted with individual notification of each patient and ordering physician." When will that take place?

I invited the DSDBI and the Department of Health (I have to invite them; they won't come of their own accord!) to assess and explain my own positive antimony and arsenic result which was gleaned in the second round of testing apparently approved by DoH. In fact I challenge them to explain it. It's not the bottles... A word of warning: The toxicologists you brought to Heathcote couldn't do it...

I also personally find it odd that you should laud the effectiveness of Golder Associates' "comprehensive risk assessment" when they have not even bothered to visit my property, which lies a mere 1.7km from the mine to test my soil and the water in my tanks. I have not been contacted by them despite giving them my details at the Heathcote RSL, advising them of my circumstances and receiving assurance that they would be in touch... comprehensive? Really? The Department of Health is aware of this and I was assured I should and would be included in the assessment. If they don't contact me soon I will have to assume that I am being deliberately excluded from the testing/assessment process in order to further skew the data.

Can you perhaps give this response another try, please? A real one, this time? If not for Mr Helps, then for me, a Costerfield landowner and ratepayer... I and my fellow residents would like to hear your answers.

Regards

[strikethrough text: This is our error; there was no "second round of testing"; the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPA) ceased "splitting samples" after 30 June, 2014. My test was taken 6 June, 2014, but was admitted as anomalous (too low to be contamination; intermittency of exposure) by Toxicologists at the Heathcote RSL Open Day.]

Still waiting for Golder to call...

[The Department of Health and Golder Associates eventually arrived to sample soil and water from my property on 6 November... this reply was sent on 19 September.

The results came back a month later... rapid assessment. I'm rapt that all "seems" to be well. I don't want to get poisoned when people are supposed to be stopping that sort of thing on my behalf.]