HOW TOXIC SOIL CAN POISON A TOWN

When you enter Bacchus Marsh, you are welcomed by towering Canadian elm trees, making up the town’s award-winning Avenue of Honour. They stretch ever upwards, providing a dense canopy over the winding main road, with kaleidoscopic light breaking through the leaves.

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Nestled below these woodland monuments lie countless orchards and groves, which are dotted throughout the countryside. They grow and sell delicious local produce, from apples to zucchini – an edible alphabet.

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Kat Barlow worries that it all could be lost if her town is approved as a PFAS dumping spot. Barlow is a spokesperson for the Bacchus Marsh Community Coalition, a group dedicated to ensuring toxic runoff from the West Gate Tunnel Project does not enter their town.

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“Our battle is to keep it in the media, keep the whole of Australia interested and make sure that everyone knows what could be dumped in our town,” Barlow says.

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“We’re not going down without a fight.”

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Maddingley Brown Coal (MBC), a mine located in Bacchus Marsh, is one of three proposed storage sites currently pending approval from the state government. If MBC’s application is accepted, more than 3 million tonnes of contaminated soil and rock could call Bacchus Marsh it’s new home.

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Earlier in the year, close to 1500 community members rallied together in Bacchus Marsh’s main streets to protest MBC’s proposal. Residents of all ages vented their frustration through chants, picket signs, and posters. And yet, their town is still in the running for the polluted soil.

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The soil and rock, known as spoil, is being unearthed for the $6.7 billion West Gate Tunnel Project, which is being developed by road operator company, Transurban. The project’s website claims that, upon extensive preliminary testing, low levels of the chemical family PFAS were found within some excavated soil. However, test results from consultancy firm Agon Environmental, which were leaked to The Age in March, indicate contamination levels ranging from 112 to 2000 times the acceptable amount found in drinking water.

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Barlow says locals need “more information” from the project’s developers.

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“The community has been kept in the dark through this entire process,” she says.

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“Almost every document that has been released to the public has been redacted. They’ve had risk assessments done, but they’ve always been redacted, we’ve never been given all the information. We’ve never been given the human health or ecological risk assessments.”

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Barlow fears her town could suffer the same fate as the Country Fire Authority’s Fiskville training site. In 2015, the facility was closed indefinitely, after a PFOS contaminant was found in the site’s water supply. Despite assurances that only “low levels” were identified, more than a dozen individuals related to the site have died of cancer.

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According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are a family of manmade chemicals. They are typically found in household products, food, water, and living organisms. The USEPA claims that PFAS exposure can cause “adverse health outcomes in humans”, including increased cholesterol, reduced infant birth weights, and thyroid hormone disruption.

Other organisations and government bodies, such as Toxic-Free Future and the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention claim that there are links between PFAS exposure and kidney and testicular cancer. However, the Australian Department of Defence states that there is “limited to no evidence of human disease or other clinically significant harm resulting from PFAS exposure”.

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The Department of Defence, however, does not install much confidence in the Bacchus Marsh Community Coalition. For almost nine months, the group has been researching the chemical, and they are finding a lot more bad news than good, says Barlow.

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“It’s seeing what it has done to other communities, it’s seeing the pain that it has caused other communities.”

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“It’s seeing that, as far as we can ascertain, it’s never been properly contained anywhere. So why are we the experiment?” She asks.

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Spoil from the West Gate Tunnel Project will come out of the ground in a mud-like state. Maddingley Brown Coal plans to temporarily store the spoil in uncovered holding bays for close to three weeks. Spoil samples will be taken on-site to determine whether the spoil is contaminated and needs to be taken to a separate facility for further testing.

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This concerns Nicola Lane greatly. As a member of the Bacchus Marsh Community Coalition, Lane is all too familiar with MBC’s proposal. She hopes to take her community passion to the Moorabool Shire Council, for which she is running as an independent candidate.

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“I’ve been very outspoken against Bacchus Marsh becoming a dumping site,” she says. “It’s absurd that the spoil could sit there for 21 days uncovered.”

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“Maddingley is elevated, it gets windy up there. If the top layer of the sludge dries and the wind picks it up, it could be carried anywhere.”

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Looking up towards MBC, the site is seemingly lost in a perpetual shroud of dust. Every day, countless trucks head up Tilley’s Road to the mine, dragging clouds of dirt behind them. Locals worry that PFAS contaminants could easily be caught in one of those clouds and accidentally dispersed over their town.

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The bioaccumulation of PFAS has attracted international concern. Bioaccumulation is the process by which a contaminant, like PFAS, can gradually amass in living organisms and move up the food chain. MBC is adjacent to the Parwan Creek, which flows into the Werribee River. If even the smallest amount of contaminated spoil was to spill into the waterways, Lane says the results could be catastrophic.

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“If there is a leak of that contaminant, it could kill the town,” she says. “The effect would be disastrous.”

“Animals could be wiped out, people could get sick, farms will have to close, jobs will be lost. It would kill everything.”