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I'm going to take credit for 12 years of saying that the testing regime of the waters in Tasmania has been flawed. In fact, it's been designed to look at some of the most diluted areas in the rivers and streams, as Alison Bleaney pointed out. I have tried repeatedly to get the Australian media to look into and report on this very topic. Without success.
QUESTION: Alex Schaap has been in the job for as long as I remember. Why has it taken him so long to speak out??? Why has the Australian now reported on the inadequate procedures that government has employed???
"TASMANIA'S biosecurity chief has conceded that the state's monitoring of potentially harmful pesticides in waterways is flawed and may need to be replaced by a better-targeted program. The current program, involving the testing of rivers and streams for pesticides at 55 locations, has for years been used to reassure the public about the effects of pesticide sprays on water. However, Alex Schaap, the Government's general manager of biosecurity and product integrity, told The Australian the sites tested were not necessarily the best for detecting contamination. "The monitoring sites exist because they are sites surveyed for other purposes," he said. "If you wanted to look at triazine (herbicide) contamination, you would want to look at different sites." Tasmania is reviewing regulation of the triazine chemicals atrazine and simazine, after a state-commissioned report revealed that they remain in the environment for up to three times longer in cool-climate regions...."
Triazine health tests flawed. Matthew Denholm. 21st April 2009
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