Monitoring of PFAS contamination at Forest Hill RAAF Base by Department of Defence indicates PFAS movement towards Wagga's water supply may be faster than earlier modelling suggested, Riverina Water says.
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00:00 River Ward has been working with Defence, we've been monitoring PFAS which is known
00:06 to be moving from the raft base here in Mildred and it needs to lead direction towards our
00:11 East Walgaer borefield.
00:12 Initial modelling indicated a 50 year period before the plume, as we call it, would hit
00:19 our East Walgaer borefield, although more recent modelling indicates that the plume
00:25 may be moving more quickly than thought and so that's why I'm here today to keep our
00:30 customers and residents informed of the impending risk and how we're going to manage the risk
00:38 presented by the plume.
00:40 So we're undertaking more modelling, we've tested all of our bores within the Walgaer
00:47 region which is East Walgaer, West Walgaer borefield and North Walgaer borefield.
00:51 All sites have negative results with the exception of one bore in our West Walgaer borefield
00:58 with a very low reading within the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.
01:02 That bore hasn't been in production during winter and will remain out of production for
01:07 the foreseen future.
01:09 We're further working with Defence to investigate the rate of movement of the plume.
01:16 We're more concerned about the East Walgaer borefield.
01:18 for the whole field.
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