The NSW Government should be strongly advocating for Australia’s drinking water guidelines to reflect global best practice after draft new guidelines released today still have Australia lagging behind the US on acceptable levels for some ‘forever chemicals’ says Cate Faehrmann, Greens NSW MP and chair of the newly established Upper House Inquiry into PFAS.
“Why should Australians accept a new drinking water standard that has levels of one forever chemical, PFOA, at 50 times what the US is prepared to accept? PFOA has recently been declared carcinogenic by the World Health Organisation, so surely the only acceptable level is close, or at, zero,” Cate Faehrmann said.
“Australia is behind many other jurisdictions that have acted on the growing body of evidence about just how dangerous these chemicals are much sooner. It shouldn’t have taken a media investigation and negative headlines to get action here.
“Australia must now seize this opportunity and adopt the world’s best practice when it comes to identifying and removing PFAS from our water supplies. The NSW Government needs to be strongly advocating for this at the federal level.
“It makes no sense that new guidelines will set acceptable levels for some ‘forever chemicals’ higher than what the US allows. Why should we be prepared to accept higher levels of chemicals than people in the US?
“The public deserves to know on what evidence all decisions around supposedly safe levels are being made,” said Cate Faehrmann.
