Letter to the Editor from Jenny Rowbotham re
Broken Hill
Broken Hill Aboriginal Children Lead Poisoning
Dear Elizabeth,
when visiting Broken Hill 29th December 2024 I had to stop and take pictures of Aboriginal
children's toys (dumper trucks and other assorted trucks out the front of the Aboriginal
Compass Housing Development, with the foot path, and yards inside the property's
covered with lead laden (Mullock) known as cracker dust.
This material is sourced close to mine site, only 50 meters from mine site. Explosives are
used to extract this material from the ground then it is crushed to become cracker dust - a
cheap, crude material that all foot paths in Broken Hill have been covered with by Broken
Hill City Council.
This material was also used by the Broken Hill Lead Centre for “decontamination” by top-
layering it on children's yards that had high lead levels, as part of their remediation
program.
2024 Volcano Art Prize (VAP) Entry. Artist: Jenny Rowbotham. Title: Broken Hill Lead Dust Lead-Safety
Message: This is where my journey began with lead and I’ve spent more than 40 years telling my story so this
cycle of lead mine lead poisoning can be broken. URL: https://volcanoartprize.com/portfolio-item/broken-
hill-lead-dust/
This (and other reasons I’ve contributed to LEAD Action News and Volcano Art Prize in
the past) is why Broken Hill has such lead levels because this material was used
everywhere in Broken Hill as an acceptable form of ground cover by:
Broken Hill City Council
Broken Hill Lead Centre
NSW Health Department
NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
At one stage there, back in 1995, when houses where being decontaminated by the Lead
Centre, EPA and Health Department, the mullock was being sourced from the Southern
Cross Mine site, where it was trucked to a Quarry at the Broken Hill City Council Dump
where it was crushed and used as ground cover during decontamination of homes and foot
paths in Broken Hill.
I have one lot of soil results which showed soil lead levels in the yard prior to
“remediation” then results of another test after “decontamination” was completed. Lead
levels in the cracker dust were actually higher than before.
Which brings me back to why should NSW tax payers pay for remediation of Council-
owned foot paths when the people in charge (government departments and council) who
are responsible for keeping the community safe from lead are the ones causing the problem
and making the community sick from accumulation of lead?
The community is unaware that the lead-laden foot paths are a source of heavy metal
contamination - as stated in documents I have acquired, that are marked HIGHLY
CONFIDENTIAL by the Health Department and Council.
The foot paths in every street in Broken Hill are covered in this hazardous material
(because it was a cheap form of ground cover and is still being used today as the preferred
method).
Jason Bawden Smith had tested this material in the 1990s and found it was 6 times the
safe levels of lead for children: 300 mg/kg (milligrams of lead per kilogram of soil) being
the limit. XRF analysis and lab testing at a NATA accredited lab were completed.
I am returning to Broken Hill to do more follow-up on this subject and take more photos
and ask why has this been overlooked – why does the government turned a blind eye - was
it the cheap cost to remediate the community or was it so they could say the whole
community was lead-contaminated, not just the apron of the line of lode (mine site).
I was reading article where testing was done in 1995 on decontaminated homes. They were
not able to access homes with cracker dust so no follow up testing could be completed with
the portable XRF machine.
I have another photo of Compass Aboriginal Housing which clearly shows children's toys
(a toddler’s bike in the lead laden ground cover / cracker dust) in the car port of the
property on Creedon Street Broken Hill.
Regards
Jenny Rowbotham, 1/1/2025
