A contaminated site that houses one of Australia’s largest military barracks is continued to be marked by the Department of Defence as having “no known contamination”, despite documents obtained under freedom of information laws showing it has asbestos, various chemical, military and lead waste issues.
The site has been chosen as the site for Queensland’s new 500-bed quarantine facility.
Consultants hired by the department made their risk assessment based on the basis that the barracks would be used in an industrial sense, and they noted that some areas of the site still pose a “medium risk” to human health.
The Department of Defence website notes that the last review, under the Regional Contamination Investigation Program, says that the site has “no known contamination at the property”.
In direct contrast is the document obtained under FOI, marked as “draft pending consultation”, dated February 2021, which summarises the site’s safety with “known contamination.”
“Waste disposal areas and former tank sites have been assessed as a medium risk to human health and the environment. The dams have been assessed as low risk. Defence seeks to verify and minimise risks caused by contamination during the planning and conduct of all base activities. Ongoing management precautions such as routine monitoring will continue where necessary.”
The ongoing consultation notes that the recommendations are for a strategy of containment with additional studies and monitoring, but the findings do note that the recommendations are based on the site being used for industrial purposes.
There is no suggestion from the available documents that the contractors who have been engaged to build the facility didn’t follow appropriate protocol for working at a site that potentially contains contamination.