Katherine Town Council sticks with contaminated sports water

“Some residents have questioned Katherine Town Council’s continued use of PFAS contaminated water.

It was the high PFAS levels in the bore water which caused the town’s swimming pool to be closed last year.

Warning signs have been placed around the town saying bores are in use but the signs do not indicate the water is contaminated.

Mayor Fay Miller revealed at the recent Senate hearing in Katherine the issue had been considered by council, although not debated in public.

Mayor Miller was questioned by Senators on the continued use of contaminated water in parks and sportsgrounds.

‘We had a long discussion about this at council. We’ve also got a responsibility to provide good play areas and green areas,’ Mayor Miller said.

‘The responsibility for us is to make sure that we’ve got good grassed areas for children to play on.

‘The reassurance we had from the health department is that the contamination was so minimal.

‘You’d probably have to eat the grass and keep eating the grass for a while for it to have any effect on you. What do you do? Let the town go brown and not do anything about it? No. Our responsibility is to provide good reserves and good parks for our town. We have the belief that we are certainly not contaminating our parks.’

Other residents told the same hearing some people were drinking from the taps and sprinklers which council was using.

Others questioned the use of drawing PFAS contamination from the acquifer and using it on the surface.

They are issues to the considered by the Senate committee…