More Testing Issues - Animal Sampling... at last, but inadequate

The DSDBI and DEPI have begun contacting farmers in the Costerfield area to gain their co-operation in conducting tests on the livestock for antimony and other contamination.

The message is confused - we aren't sure if they are testing from ten properties or want just ten animals. Probably the latter. Any clarification from the 'whole of government'? We'd like to know, believe it or not.

According to the regulatory officers, all animals will be sourced from close to the mine. Why?

Elevated antimony readings in people were registered at some distance, various distances, from the mine. Why would the testing process be limited to addressing just the possibility of the deposited dust causing problems close to the mine? That's the wrong type of antimony. Scientific uncertainty again.

Would it not be advisable for the DSDBI and DEPI to give the Department of Health a call and find out exactly where the elevated readings in humans were throughout the district and then test animals close to those areas?

Doesn't that make much more sense?

You know, a 'whole of government' approach. Communication between departments... all that sort of important stuff that we, the Public, pay you good money to do.

How far has the contamination spread? Well at least 4.5 km we contend. Below are results of testing undertaken by the residents of Costerfield in April. That's a month before the Department of Health graced us with their presence. We invited all of the Departments to attend a presentation of these results all the way back then, but they ignored us and organised their own obfuscatory Public Information something or other, instead.

In April we had livestock tested. Six weeks after the Department of Health was informed of dust by Costerfield farmer Neil Harris, on 11 March, 2014. Because we were concerned for our health. And SIX MONTHS LATER the Department of Health, DSDBI, and DEPI are only now phoning farmers to ask for lambs to test. They have done no animal and livestock testing, yet. Why not? Testing the sheep should have been one of the first things done. That's why we did it. These are farms. Chemical-free farms. Trying to be chemical-free farms anyway. They grow and sell food that people eat.

The regulators have no comparable figures and yet they've had the audacity to dismiss them! Go science! Preconceived notions sometimes require the skewing of facts.


We wonder if the departments are still using the AUSPLUME formula to determine where dust may have landed. That's what was being used in 2003 and there's no reason to assume that the Departments have updated their practice since then. Nothing else has improved much over the years.

If they are, then that is a serious limiting of the extent of the investigations. This handily-titled guide from the New Zealand Ministry for the Environment is probably a good place to look for alternative approaches. Appropriate approaches that actually deal with the conditions and events in Costerfield.

If you're not going to do things properly, why bother doing them at all?

The AUSPLUME formula and other "Gaussian" models assume "steady state" conditions. That is, they are calculated according to the simplistic assumption that meteorological conditions remain unchanged between the source of an emission and the place where it lands. That's obviously not the right way to go about examining this contamination.

Particulate emissions from a mine's vent would - especially at 6/7pm and 6/7am when underground blasting takes place - be likely to "puff" out into the air, like this.

Now, we're no plume specialists (seems we're not alone), but looking at that diagram above, we'd be putting our money on the plume from the mine according more with a formula called "Calpuff"... Doesn't that make sense? There is obviously a high "complexity of effects" involved.

Remember, there are 100km/h winds in Costerfield. And we have a heterogeneous mass of compounds and particles belching up from underground.

That stuff could have ended up in Shepparton, couldn't it... Max?