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Victorian Tank Water Lead
Results Alarming!
Lead Advisory Service
Australia staff had an incredibly hard time tracking down a copy of the Victorian drinking
water survey - Victorian Health Department officials were unaware that a lead in drinking
water (at the kitchen tap) survey had been done in Victoria - apparently the only one done
in Australia since 1993. The study possibly arose out of the second strategy in a sixth
government plan (see below) or, more likely, through a policy to assess
tank water quality
(in general) in another department.
It is amazing that the
extremely high rate of excess lead in drinking water from rainwater tanks revealed by the
study - one in four rainwater tanks - was not mentioned in the book that health
bureaucrats in most states regard as the best government guide on rainwater tanks in
Australia - "Guidance on the Use of Rainwater Tanks" by David Cunliffe. This
book is one of the National Environmental Health Forum (NEHF) Monographs and all state
Directors of Environmental Health are members of the forum. The book does quote results
for other contaminants from the Victorian study, whose title is " Investigation of
Microbiological and Chemical Water Quality in Rainwater Tanks in Victoria, Report No.
139/97 (1997) by Bannister, R; Westwood J; McNeill, A; Water Ecoscience Pty Ltd. It is
published by Victoria's Department of Natural Resources and Environment, but even
Victoria's Department of Human Services glossy colour pamphlet on tank
water does not
mention the lead results. Is drinking water, like indoor air, one of those issues that no
government agency is solely responsible for, and thus dealt with adequately by no agency?
Please let the editor know if your state deals adequately with the issue of lead in
drinking water.
REFERENCE 6:
"Lead
Strategy" (prepared By Environment Health Program, Public Health Branch, Dept Of
Health and Community Services [H&CS], Victoria) Sept 1993
Publication No. 93/0093.
WATER
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H&CS will conduct a
survey of lead in drinking water at the point of use in metropolitan homes. {Appendix I
timetable: TAP WATER SURVEY October 1993 - April 1994}
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There may be a small
number of rural supplies (including possibly some tank supplies to preschool centres) that
are unable to comply with this level [the proposed World Health Organization level of 10
micrograms per Litre (10 µg/L)], and a small survey to assist in identifying these is
also planned in conjunction with the State Water Laboratory. {Appendix I timetable:
RURAL/TANKWATER SURVEY May - October 1994}
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