By Ro Evans
SYDNEY — Asthma, difficulty in breathing, skin problems, headaches and itchy eyes are common complaints among residents living near the disused Ford tip site in Sydney's Homebush West, not far from the Olympics 2000 site. They claim the old tip is contaminated with toxic chemicals.
An independent environmental survey by Coffey Partners has found that the required health and safety precautions were not met by Ford, which finished using the tip in 1994. A landfill cap of at least three metres of compacted clean soil was required to prevent gases leaking from the site; the survey found that the cap was less than three metres in most places and non-existent in others.
Laura Leonoff lives adjacent to the tip site. Her mother moved into the house in 1980 and three years later died from a cerebral haemorrhage. Seven years after moving in herself, Laura was afflicted with the same condition. She says her sisters, who live away from the area, have had no such problems.
Ford sent an executive to a residents' meeting. She reportedly dismissed the smell coming from the site as "rotten egg gas" (hydrogen sulfide), which has an unpleasant odour but is otherwise harmless.
Strathfield councillor Virginia Judge said she became concerned by the number of residents who were ill. "I kept ringing the EPA about the smell. The EPA told me to go to the council, and the council told me to go to the police ...
"I went and had a look in council files and found a letter from Allen Jenkins, who is a chemist who used to work for Hatricks; he's retired now and he's not well either. [He said that] when he was working for Hatricks chemicals they used to make all sorts of chemicals, including Agent Orange. They used to wash down the chemical vats and drain all the water off into the tip."
The Coffey Partners survey found leachate, formed by the infiltration of water into landfill material which chemically reacts with the landfill material, to contain elevated levels of barium, chromium, nickel, lead and zinc as well as cyanide, ammonia and volatile organic compounds such as ethyl benzene and xylene.
There were also compounds exceeding ambient air exposure standards such as hydrogen sulfide, benzene, xylene and trimethylbenzene. Benzene is regarded as carcinogenic to humans.
Residents who want to move claim they are unable to sell their homes. They are now concerned about rumoured plans to rezone the area, fearing that it may become a high-density locality ahead of the Olympics, which would lead to health problems for more people.
The EPA is now pushing the Department of Health to do a survey as a basis for a rehabilitation plan for the site. The current plan, to re-cap the site and install two leachate pumps, is expected to take three years. Residents are concerned about exposure during the interim; they also feel that two leachate pumps may prove insufficient.