Hunter New England Health (HNEH) has revealed it was only notified of Kootingal's uranium contaminated bore towards the end of August - nearly six weeks after the guideline breach was discovered.
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On Thursday it was revealed high levels of uranium were found in Kootingal and Moonbi’s water supply, forcing the council to shut down four bores.
HNEH public health physician Dr David Durrheim said the department was still awaiting more data and tests from from council surrounding the finding.
"It's most important to characterise the uranium that's involved," Dr Durrheim said.
In the meantime, the health department played down the potential risks from exceeding the guidelines.
"Over the shorter term, you could have that exposure with no effects," he said.
The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) recommends uranium levels in drinking water are kept below 17 micrograms per litre.
Accute health effects associated with radiation only occur at “much higher doses” and are “therefore not a concern for water supplies except in extreme accident situations”.
Dr Durrheim said the guidlines suggest a 70kg person would have to be exposed to that level, drinking two litres a day for 70 years.
"The drinking water guidelines are not a magical number, it's the trigger to investigate further," Dr Durrheim said.
Dr Durrheim said council notified the department "at the end of August" about the uranium levels and said TRC had taken the appropriate action supplying Kootingal an altrenative water supply.
The department has requested council send a full history of test results, test results from each Moonbi-Kootingal bore and specific radiation testing.
Depending on the results it could be an even longer wait, for a determination on the health risks, with further testing possibly needed.
“We still have gaps in our knowledge,” he said.
“One doesn't want to give half-baked guidances.
“We want as complete a picture as possible.”
Council fronts the media
TAMWORTH Regional Council (TRC) is still unable to say what the effects on local residents is after the groundwater supply was contaminated by uranium, as they await advice from health experts.
And it’ll be at least two weeks before council knows what the department of health’s recommendation will be, following the discovery of high levels of uranium in the drinking water supply for Moonbi and Kootingal.
TRC water director Bruce Logan fronted the media on Thursday morning as the region looked for answers regarding the revelations.
“We’re working with the department of health to establish whether there has been risk to those consumers,” Mr Logan said.
“We’ve got to provide some additional information to the department of health and I don’t know how long that might take, we’ll get that information to them as soon as we can and I would expect in one to two weeks we will have answer for the residents out there.”
As investigations continue, Mr Logan said council will have to determine the long-term fate of the contaminated Kootingal well.
“We are considering whether we put the bores back to service,” he said.
“If we can’t supply water that doesn’t meet the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, then we won’t put those bores back into service.
“As long as we’re complying with those, we should be able to guarantee the safety of our water.
“We can provide water from Tamworth for Moonbi-Kootingal indefinitely, what council needs to consider is that what they want to do, abandon the groundwater supply for Moonbi-Kootingal.”
Residents react
Kootingal and Moonbi residents are still coming to terms with the news they have been drinking and bathing in uranium-contaminated water.
Health risks are the primary concern, and with the NSW Department of Health yet to provide detailed information, locals spoken to by The Leader on Thursday have a lot of questions.
New mother Melanie Tulley uses a water purifier, so she wasn’t worried about herself – but she was concerned about her four and a half-month old baby, Chayce.
“I’m not [breast] feeding him anymore, but we sterilise the bottle with tap water,” Mrs Tulley said.
She also wanted to know what effect the uranium could have on skin.
“He also gets dry skin after we bath him and he’s out of the new born stage of dry skin. I’ve got sensitive skin at the best of times, so I thought he might have got it from me, but now I’m feeling it might be due to the water.”
Kootingal resident Leonie White said she already had underlying health conditions and wanted to know if there was anything she should be watching out for.
“Is this a major concern or is this something we don’t have to worry about?” she said.
Moonbi mum Kelly Fox is “furious” it took council a month to do a second test and swap the water supply.
“I really want to know what took so long,” Mrs Kelly said.
She was also frustrated it took council two weeks to notify residents.
“They [swapped the water over] in August, it’s September now,” she said.
“I’m worried about my little girls. They drink the tap water, what will it do to them?
“We are paying for dodgy water and we are paying for lies.”
However, while there is a high level of concern in the community, there were plenty of people unfazed by the news.
Colleen Gallagher, who has lived in Kootingal for more than six decades, said she trusted the council.
“You’ve got to have faith in them,” Mrs Gallagher said.
“Council is going to look after us, that’s what they are there for.”
Peter Steadman, of Kootingal, said he understood why the council waited to tell residents the news.
“You can’t just come out and tell everyone straight away, you’ve got to get all the facts and information in front of you first,” he said.
URANIUM DISCOVERED
High levels of uranium have been found in Kootingal and Moonbi’s water supply, forcing the council to shut down four bores.
The villages have been switched to the Tamworth town water supply due to health concerns, as authorities launch an investigation into how the contamination occurred.
Tamworth Regional Council moved to allay community fears, notifying 1100 households with a leaflet drop on Wednesday night.
The council first became aware of the issue when one of Kootingal’s bores returned a positive result during routine testing, specifically targeting uranium, on July 15.
A second test was carried out on August 19 to confirm the findings and four days later the water supply was switched.
The initial test returned a result of 32 micrograms of uranium per litre – nearly double the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) recommendation of 17 micrograms and above the 30 microgram limit recommended by the World Health Organisation.
As of Wednesday night, council was unable to confirm when the bore was last tested for uranium levels before these latest results.
According to the ADWG, drinking water should be tested for uranium at least annually.
The elevated uranium level is believed to have occurred naturally in the groundwater.
Because the uranium levels were above the official guidelines, the council’s water director Bruce Logan said TRC took the precautionary step of changing the water supply of the villages.
“Moonbi and Kootingal will remain on the alternate Tamworth water supply until further notice,” Mr Logan said.
Council flushed the reservoir and the pipes before connecting the town water.
The NSW Department of Health has been notified of the contamination, and requested the council conduct additional testing so an informed health risk assessment could be made.
The ADWG says the acute health effects of radiation, such as skin burns, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, only occur at “much higher doses” and are “therefore not a concern for water supplies except in extreme accident situations”.
‘An unusual event’
Macquarie University environmental science professor, Mark Taylor, said it was hard to know what the associated risks are with the Kootingal findings.
Professor Taylor's current research program looks at environmental pollution and risks to human health.
“It is an unusual event, there's a risk, but it depends on the length of exposure and depends on the context,” Professor Taylor said.
And the professor said there were myriad factors that would determine the risk.
“We don't know how long people were exposed and what their daily intake was,” Professor Taylor said.
“Was this a one off event?”
Professor Taylor said the finding was “interesting from a scientific” perspective, but emphasised there was an upside to the uranium discovery.
“The testing works,” Professor Taylor said.
"The positive is their action.
“You have to take your hat off to the [organisation] that's intervened and I'm sure they're figuring out what the next step is.
“Everything sounds appropriate.”
Professor Taylor told The Leader he couldn’t imagine that agriculture would be related to the elevated uranium levels found.
