I‘m on mobile 018 697972. If it does not answer try again half an hour later. At squash. picture: Zafar Ahmad, his wife Paryeen and second child Farheema at their Theodore homes yesterday. The Ahmad family arrived home from six weeks’ holiday last week to be told they have arsenic readings on their land four times the recommended safety level as a result of an old sheep dip at the site and they should consider moving. The level is higher than at two houses next door where the families were moved. However, Zafar Ahmad said ACT government officials had told his wife, Paryeen, that she could continue with a day-care group of five or six children that she runs before and after school, provided parents were told and children play at the back, not at the front of the house where the high readings were taken.
The day-care business is virtually gone. The Government has offered to help with the Ahmad’s move, but the Theodore Action Group says families should be offered legal help, counselling and guarantees of compensation before moving. Mr Ahmad said his neighbours had been gone for four months before he knew about it. The extent of arsenic on his land was only discovered in later testing. The problem of arsenic poison came about after the Minders of Tuggeranong Homestead and the Canberra Conservation Council started questioning about suitability of building houses on the homestead site which had a sheep dip. About 15 potentially contaminated sites have been found in Canberra residential areas and about 60 elsewhere in the ACT. Most were found from historic photographs and old maps and are being investigated with on the ground testing. The Theodore one is the only one where people have been moved.
The Government has offered to buy back the houses at market prices. However, 15 families in nearby houses are worried about health, property values and compensation and have formed the action group, which has placed a list of demands on the Government. The Minister for the Environment, Bill Wood, said last night that he had been responsive to residents’ claims and recognised their claims. He did not want anyone to suffer because of the former sheep dip sites. However, as the detail and extent of the claims grew it became harder to deal with them immediately and within the time frame the residents demanded. The Government had acted promptly to relocate the other affected families. Action group member Ian McKenzie said at first the group tried to be co-operative and not dramatise things. However, it had now been going on for four months.
The Minister had promised to accept liability, but had not sent the letter doing so. Group member Derek Emerson-Elliot said, “”Departmental officers said it was in our best interests not to tell anyone _ for property values and privacy.” However, he now thought the government was running a policy of secrecy, containment and time wasting. “”You don’t know if you are going to wake up one morning and find the big cross on your door,” he said. _ a reference to the Medieval practice of painting a cross on doors of houses contaminated with the plague. Steve Liston said anecdotal evidence showed property values were falling in the area.
The group wants compensation for loss of land value, loss to businesses run from home, disturbance, potential damage to health, changes to the drilling and testing program, a study on the long-term effects of arsenic. The group is worried about a consultant’s report that talks about demolition of houses and removal of earth. They say they were told they could not have it; then it was unsatisfactory and then that it had been held back until the Ahmads’ returned from holiday so they could be told properly. Arsenic was used in sheep did for half a century in many sites near Canberra. Sheep dripped it around sheep dip sites and it is a poison that builds up in the body over time.
The main worry is with children playing in contaminated earth, according to ANU chemist Dr Ben Selinger. The group’s research shows there is very little knowledge about long-term small-dose exposure. Mr McKenzie said Theodore was the first contaminated site to be dealt with; he was concerned that other residents did not get treated in the same way. Since the Tuggeranong Homestead revelation the Government has set up a Contaminated Sites Unit and issued a detailed draft policy on identifying sites, testing for contamination, containing or disposing of contamination and counselling and compensating residents. Departmental officers say there is a difficult balance between privacy and information that could cause over-reaction.