Australia's Toxic Green Olympics?
1/28/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Australia's Toxic Green Olympics?
Source: Sharon Beder
STS, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia fax:
+61 42 213 452 email: s.beder@uow.edu.au
Date: 1/28/96
Sharon Beder, Sydney's Toxic Green Olympics, Current Affairs
Bulletin, vol.70, no. 6, November 1993, pp.12-18.
To win the Olympic Games for Sydney, the Sydney Olympics 2000 Bid
Limited (SOBL) had to overcome an awesome public relations hurdle.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was keen to have a green
Olympics. It had announced that it would make environmental
considerations a criterion for evaluating candidate cities and the
IOC president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, said that the IOC's primary
concern would be to ensure the environment is respected and this
would be taken into account in the final vote.1 But Sydney's big
problem was that the city's proposed site was to be amidst one of
Australia's worst toxic waste dumps.
The solution was to concentrate on and market other "green"
aspects of Sydney's bid and ensure that discussion of the
contamination was kept out of the public arena.2 The SOBL enlisted
some environmentalists and environmental consultants to produce
environmental guidelines for the construction and operation of
Olympic facilities. The guidelines advocated the use of recyclable
and recycled building materials, the use of plantation timber as
opposed to forest timber, and tickets printed on "recycled post
consumer waste paper".3 The Olympic village was designed by a
consortium of architects, including a firm commissioned by
Greenpeace, Australia. The design provided for use of solar
technology and solar designs, state of the art energy generation
systems, cycle ways and waste water recycling systems.4
These measures were heralded as a major environmental breakthrough
in urban design. A media release from SOBL stated that "No other
event at the beginning of the 21st Century will have a greater
impact on protecting the environment than the 2000 Olympic Games
in Sydney."5 In another the NSW Minister responsible for the bid,
Bruce Baird, said that Sydney's Olympics will be an environmental
showpiece to the rest of the world which future host cities can
follow in future Games6. Ros Kelly, the Federal Minister for
Environment, Sport and Territories, also put out a press release
arguing that "a vote by the international community for Sydney
will be a vote for the environment."7
Contamination of the Site
Most of the Olympic facilities and the Olympic village will be
located at Homebush Bay, a 760ha disused industrial site about 12
kilometres from the Sydney central business district. The area has
been home to a number of unpleasant industries since early in the
century. Part of the site once housed the State Abattoirs (1907 to
1988) and the State Brickworks (1911 to 1988) which included a
quarry for clay and shale to make bricks. The Navy's armaments
depot is currently on the site but is likely to be relocated. In
the mid-1980s when it became evident that the brickworks and the
abattoirs were nearing the end of their operating lives, the area
was designated for redevelopment. It is surrounded by chemical
industries, a fuel terminal, a large petroleum products storage
area, an oil refinery and a prison. Unoccupied parts of the site
have also been subject to years of waste dumping.8
Extensive landfilling and land reclamation has been carried out on
the site since the 1890s, most of it during the 1960s and 1970s
when municipal councils stopped taking industrial waste at their
garbage tips. Industrial waste dumping continued even into the
early 1980s. As a result a bay and large areas of saltmarshes and
wetlands have been filled in (see map). In total about one third
of the Homebush site has been filled to a depth of between 0.5 and
4 metres. Materials used for landfill and reclamation ranged from
demolition materials to industrial and household wastes. Since
most of the filling happened without supervision no records were
kept of the location or type of wastes that were buried on the
site. In recent years heavy metals, asbestos contaminated wastes
and chemical wastes including dioxins and pesticides, have been
found on parts of the site.9
In 1991 Coffey Partners International completed a study of soil
contamination that involved taking samples at various depths on a
50 metre grid across much of the site. Samples were analysed for a
range of compounds. Samples were also analysed for dioxin "in
landfill areas, where historical research indicated it may have
been present."10 The study was commissioned by the Property
Services Group, a NSW government department with responsibility
for developing Homebush Bay.
The testing by Coffey Partners revealed extensive contamination.
The problem was worst at the old brickworks site, near the State
Sports Centre and near Haslams Creek that runs through the site
separating the proposed Olympic village from the existing and
proposed sporting and recreational activities. As well as the
landfill waste there was other hazardous waste in the area because
there had been five railway stations in the area and the rail
embankments were constructed of asbestos wastes and regularly
sprayed with weedicides.
The areas along the edges of Haslams Creek (see map) were found by
Coffey Partners to contain heavy metals, lead, hydrocarbons,
asbestos, pesticides and putrescible wastes. The groundwater had
elevated levels of chlorobenzenes, chloromethanes and
chloroethylenes presumably leached out of the dumped material in
the ground. The surface seep water contained elevated levels of
chlorobenzene, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, ammonium,
fluoride, barium, copper, zinc and other metals.11
At the brickworks site, one of the pits had been used for disposal
of industrial waste from the early 1970s before any specialised
landfill facilities for industrial waste were available in Sydney.
It has now been found by Coffey Partners to contain heavy metals,
waste oil products, asbestos and organochlorine pesticides. The
other pit operated as a quarry for the brickworks until 1988 and
now consists of a gaping hole covering 16 hectares with a diameter
of 400 metres and a depth of 40 metres (30 metres below sea
level). (The pits were used as a location for the film Mad Max
Beyond Thunderdome because of the derelict after-the-bomb
atmosphere.)
The brickworks area covering about 30 hectares is planned to be an
important feature of the Olympics 2000 development. At one stage
it was proposed to excavate the filled pit and flood both pits to
form two circular inland harbours. But the contamination of the
site precluded this and in order to avoid having to excavate the
wastes out of the filled pit, it is likely that the area above the
filled pit will be landscaped and an entertainment centre built
there (see map) where the gymnastics events could be held. It is
also proposed that a major outdoor concert venue or amphitheatre
and tennis centre (see map) be established over the other pit and
that perhaps the cavity underneath could be used to store
stormwater for irrigation purposes.12 According to the Property
Services Group the final design for the brickpit area has not been
finalised because the level of access to the small brickpit area
has yet to be determined.13
In the grounds around the State Sports Centre, next door to the
proposed Olympic velodrome where it is intended to establish a
golfing range, testing by Coffey Partners has revealed arsenic,
lead, cadmium, asbestos, pesticides and low concentrations of
dioxins and dibenzofurans up to 9.5 metres deep. Groundwater in
the area was found to have elevated levels of chlorobenzenes,
organochlorines and cyanide. Surface water in the creek running
through the site is also contaminated with chlorinated
hydrocarbons. A major concern in this area was that acidic
leachate was threatening to corrode pipelines buried under the
western portion of the site including oil and gas lines and high
tension underground electricity lines.14
The Olympic village will be on the southern end of the Newington
Armaments Depot which stores and supplies ammunition to the Royal
Australian Navy. Part of this site, closest to Haslams Creek, is
unsuitable for housing because it is flood-prone and includes
waste fill. The Armaments Depot is to be relocated. One option
being considered is to shift it to Jervis Bay (on the South Coast
of NSW), but this proposal is extremely controversial since Jervis
Bay is a valued ecological area.
Assessing Risks Posed at the Site
The sampling data collected by Coffey Partners were reviewed and
interpreted in 1990/91 by consultants Dames and Moore for the
Property Services Group in a multi-volume report on site
remediation for the area. Dames and Moore found that the most
contaminated parts of the site posed potential health and safety
problems to workers and site visitors during redevelopment,
particularly from near surface asbestos contamination near the
main brick pit and chemical contamination and ongoing generation
and seepage to the surface of landfill gas. They also stated that
there could be public health risks to users of these areas arising
from possible seepage of contaminants and gases to the surface
after redevelopment was complete.
John Pollack, a biochemist and honorary associate of the
University of Sydney who advises the Total Environment Centre,
says chemicals can enter the body via ingestion, absorption
through the skin and inhalation of gases, vapours, dusts or
aersols and be distributed through the body via the bloodstream.
However he points out that "the deleterious effects of many
hazardous chemicals remain ill-defined or are a cause for
dispute". This is especially the case for the mixtures of
chemicals that might occur at a hazardous waste site. He points
out that some hazardous wastes, such as organochlorines and
hydrocarbons generate free radicals which migrate through the soil
and can cause membrane and DNA damage in humans.15 "As a result
people may get a range of problems including ill-effects that are
not well defined."16
Environmental effects are also difficult to predict. Stuart
Nicholson and Nirander Safaya, writing in a recent issue of
Environment, Science and Technology say that there are no
comprehensive data bases on hazardous waste site ecology to draw
on "other than general principles of ecotoxicology and some
documented effects of contaminants on biota."17
It was the job of environmental consultants Inner City Fund (ICF)
P/L to assess the health and environmental risks that were posed
by the Homebush Bay site for the Property Services Group, before
and after remediation. ICF are an Australian branch of a US firm
set up in the 1960s to clean up big East Coast American cities.
One of their reports, completed in February this year, concluded:
"While it is probable that risks from dioxins in surface soil and
subsurface soil are in fact below acceptable thresholds, there are
insufficient data of good quality to confirm this."18
ICF had similar problems when it considered specific parts of the
Homebush Bay site. It was unable to come up with definitive
conclusions because of numerous uncertainties that have yet to be
resolved and because it was not responsible for remediation work
and had to assume it would be done properly. For example, In its
report on the State Sports Centre, ICF had to qualify its
conclusion that after remediation there would be little chance of
adverse ecological impacts with the provision that no leachate
from the contaminated part of the site entered the creek and that
the creek didn't intercept any contaminated soil.19 Similarly, in
its report on the contamination of Haslam's Creek South, ICF
concluded that risks to people using the site from breathing in
contaminants were probably within acceptable limits but that
"insufficient data was available for quantitative assessment". ICF
is conducting ongoing investigations for the Property Services
Group to try and fill in these gaps.
Similarly ICF will be collecting more information to be able to
make a fuller assessment of the risks in the brickworks area. For
example, it was unable to include potential risks from volatile
chemicals in the soils at the site because of a lack of data. It
said "it is likely that VOCs [volatile organic chemicals] are
present at the site and could pose a potential health risk due to
direct contact with soil and due to inhalation of compounds which
have volatilised into air."20
Pollack says that these sorts of uncertainties need to be resolved
before any further development goes ahead. "It would be very
irresponsible to ignore such statements" he says21. Pollack's main
involvement with the Homebush area has been with the contamination
of the Bay itself, the water and the sediments. He is on an
Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) committee charged with
cleaning up the problem but has been frustrated in his attempts
over the past eight years to have the problem taken seriously.
A 1991 study of aquatic sediments and fauna in Homebush Bay
commissioned by the State Pollution Control Commission22 and
carried out by scientists Norman Rubinstein and John Wicklun, both
from the US EPA, found that there were "high concentrations of a
number of organochlorine compounds, especially
2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD)" mainly as a result of
the past activities of the Union Carbide facilities across the Bay
from the Olympic site. The scientists claimed that they were "not
aware of any sites in the US with sediment concentrations of TCDD
this high".23
Fishing in Homebush Bay is currently banned because of
contamination of the fish. Pollack points out that any dredging as
part of the redevelopment of the Homebush Bay site could meet the
same problem that previous dredging has. Material taken out of the
Bay previously was so contaminated that the land it was taken to
had to be subsequently classified as a contaminated site, he
claims.
Remediation of the Site
The risks to human and environmental health posed by a hazardous
waste site can be lessened by reducing the contamination. This
would involve treating or removing contaminated soil.
Alternatively risks can be lessened by preventing exposure of
humans, animals and plants to the contamination. The first
alternative treatment is the more responsible way of dealing with
contaminated sites because it is more permanent, but it is also
more expensive. The Property Services Group, however, has chosen
the latter approach. In the US under Superfund Amendments and
Reauthorization Act (SARA) provisions, permanent treatment of
contaminated soils is preferred to non-treatment containment
systems24 such as those being proposed by the Property Services
Group.
Like the US authorities the Australian and New Zealand Environment
and Conservation Council (ANZECC) and the National Health and
Medical Research Council (NHMRC) published guidelines for
contaminated sites in January 1992 which stated a preferred order
of options for site clean-up and management. ANZECC and NHMRC
preferred on-site treatment of the soil or off-site treatment of
the excavated soil. "Should it not be possible for either of these
options to be implemented, then other options that should be
considered" include removal of the soil to an approved site,
isolation of the soil by covering it with a properly designed
barrier or choosing a less sensitive land use. The guidelines
point out that "polluted soil should be regarded as potentially
hazardous waste and as such should be subjected to the same
controls over its use, storage, transport and ultimate disposal as
industrial waste."25
The remediation strategy for the Homebush site does not involve
treatment of the toxic contamination as is generally preferred but
rather removing contaminated soil from the less contaminated parts
of the site and transporting them to the worst contaminated areas
so that there is "more space for suitable development".26 For
example the contaminated soil near the Sports Centre, around the
pipes in the Western part of the site and from beneath the
softball area will be concentrated in the northern part of the
site bounded by a creek, and the Sports Centre Access Roads (see
map).27
The creek, known as Boundary creek, runs from a pond near the
Sports Centre to a lake in nearby Bicentennial Park. It has been
diverted further south, away from the most contaminated areas (see
map). The decision to divert the creek was made because of the
difficulty of catching the leachate going into it in its original
position. It was thought that digging trenches to put the drains
into that area could have endangered the lives of the workers.28
Leachate drains have been installed along the edge of the diverted
creek and along the eastern side of the site to catch contaminated
groundwater. According to the Property Services Group, the
contaminated area will also be "capped with a cover layer of clean
fill and soil designed to restrict rainfall infiltration, and
landscaped."29 This remediation work is due for completion at the
end of this year.
Heavily contaminated waste from the southern end of the Olympics
precinct beneath and adjacent to the aquatic centre, has been
excavated and removed to a nearby secure landfill where it is
proposed to build hardstand carpark areas some time in the future.
This landfill will be fully lined and covered with topsoil.
"Leachate will be monitored, collected and treated as
necessary."30
Contaminated materials from other areas are being brought to a
landfill on the southern side of Haslams Creek which will then be
capped and landscaped and leachate drains installed. In this area
is a pile of waste called Bradshaw's mountain which is expected to
grow another 10m tall before it is capped. Recently a busload of
visitors were told by a site guide that they could not get off the
bus to inspect Bradshaw's mountain because anyone going within 10
metres of it would need to be properly suited with respirators.31
Leachates have been going into the creek for many years now and
the Property Services Group considers it is a matter of priority
that they be intercepted. Leachate intercepted by the proposed
drains here and elsewhere on site will be tested and if
contaminated pumped to an Aqueous Waste Treatment Plant. (Leachate
that is not found to be contaminated may be used to irrigate
grassed areas of the site.) The Aqueous Waste Treatment Plant is
conveniently situated between the Olympic Village and the other
Olympic facilities (see map) and already treats toxic sludges and
other industrial liquid waste unfit for disposal to sewer from
around the Sydney area.
In their guidelines ANZECC and NHMRC say that "In general, the
response to dealing with contaminated soil in Australia has been
to dig it up and take it to a secure landfill."32 In the case of
the Homebush Bay site this is thought to be too expensive, and
would merely move the problem somewhere else.
Errol Samuels, who is the person in the NSW Environmental
Protection Authority responsible for contaminated sites, says that
the range of technologies being used in the US to clean up sites
is just not available in Australia. "For example, in the US you
might dig up the contaminated soil and incinerate it, but there is
no suitable incinerator here in Australia. Bioremediation is very
slow and only reduces concentrations of hazardous waste to certain
levels. Land fill facilities are limited and some landfill
operators won't take these sort of wastes."33
John Pym, from the Waste Recycling and Processing Service (WRAPS),
argues that all treatment of waste involves degradation and that
containment is just a very slow means of degradation. The only
draw back with containment, he says, is the liability that might
arise from a sudden breach of the containment and the time taken
for eventual degradation. In the case of Homebush Bay he argues
that most of the waste has been contained for 15 years already and
so degradation is already underway. Economics and the need to use
the site quickly meant that containment was the best strategy.34
According to Jim Libby, from the EPA, it is costing about $30
million to rehabilitate Haslams Creek South, the State Sports
Centre and the SRA embankment in the Olympic precinct. This money
is coming from the State government. The Property Services Group
is also funding a position in the EPA to enable their close
involvement with the site.35 Although $30 million sounds like a
lot of money it is no where near the sort of money being spent in
the US on Superfund sites where efforts are made to treat the
waste rather than just contain it. A Property Services Group
officer has commented that theirs was a more practical solution
that got things done while the US authorities were "still mucking
about."36
The need for a quick clean up has obviously affected remediation
decisions. For example removal of 80,000 tonnes of asbestos waste
from the Olympic precinct posed a problem that was overcome by
using unorthodox methods. With the agreement of union officials
the waste, instead of being sealed and bagged, was wetted down and
moved in bulk.37
Although no additional site allowances have been given to the
workers dealing with waste material on the site, monitoring has
been installed to protect workers' health. There is a monitoring
control system that operates before and after as well as during
working hours to protect the public and the workers. If levels of
waste in the air exceed set levels then the site is supposed to be
closed down. For example, at the State Sports Centre monitoring is
carried out for chromium 6 and benzene (both carcinogens). In the
vicinity of the Aquatic Centre monitoring is done for arsenic and
asbestos fibres. Dust is collected and analysed.38
Public Involvement
The ANZECC/NHMRC guidelines are quite explicit about the need for
community involvement. "There is a demonstrated requirement for
community consultation and participation during the investigation
and clean-up of sites". They say this is because the public has
a "right to know".39 Yet the remediation work at Homebush Bay has
been going on without any environmental impact statement being
prepared and publicly displayed. The reports produced for the
PSG, such as the Dames and Moore report and the ICF reports, have
not been published although some are available through Freedom of
Information applications.
The government authorities claim there has been extensive
community consultation. Groups consulted range from Greenpeace
through to a local group called Greenspace which apparently
consisted of three married couples who organised exhibitions and
translaters for the local community. The PSG has kept some key
people informed, including a specially selected environmental
committee, and has maintained contact with others through
newsletters and brochures.
However many local residents do not feel there has been adequate
public consultation and participation. A survey of local residents
undertaken last year by the local group, Greens In Lowe, found
that of the 100 residents surveyed, 71% said they were not getting
enough information about what is to be done in the Homebush Bay
area for them to be able to form an opinion on it and 75% said
that they had not received enough information about the clean-up
of pollution in the area to satisfy them that the area was safe
for people to live and work in.40
The usual process in NSW for involving the public in such
decisions is through the public and advertised display of an
environmental impact statement (EIS), which the public is able to
make submissions on. Alan Gilpin, former NSW Commissioner of
Inquiry says of EISs in general that they are supposed to alert
the decision-maker, members of the public, and the government to
the consequences of a project and explore alternatives to the
project.41
The mandatory requirement for such an EIS to be prepared for
earthworks at the brickpits site was removed through an amendment
to the Regional Environmental Plan (REP) in 1991. A new Regional
Environmental Plan recently prepared by the NSW Department of
Planning removes mandatory requirements for an EIS to be prepared
for earthworks on other parts of the site that had been subject
to landfilling. It gives the NSW Minister for Planning full
authority to give consent for development of the area earmarked
for Olympic facilities and allows development of the contaminated
land within the area, including landfilling, removal and reworking
of filled material to occur without the normal consultation
process.
The new Regional Environmental Plan has angered some
environmentalists. According to Jeff Angel, co-director of the
Total Environment Centre, the plan allows the Government to be "a
law unto itself. It is incredible that despite the concerns
previously expressed by environmentalists that Sydney's Green
Olympic Bid was all hot air, the Government still felt it
necessary to issue the REP in this form."42
Angel, argues that the Sydney Olympic bid's green credentials were
exaggerated by ignoring associated environmental problems. He says
"The state of Sydney's environment has been misrepresented to a
serious degree. For example the Premier in his Introduction to the
Bid's Fact Sheets describes the Games as occurring in a pollution
free environment. The bid document asserts Sydney's waste system
can cope, when in fact we have a waste crisis."43
Environmentalists are also concerned about the diversion of
revenue into extravagant sports facilities and the loss of valued
local ecosystems.44
Despite misgivings by some environmentalists about the
environmental credentials of the Games, the issue of toxic
contamination of the site was not openly discussed prior to the
Olympic decision because of the inaccessibility of relevant
information. Public discussion of the hazardous waste issue has
also been somewhat muted by the close involvement with the Olympic
bid of a key environmental group, Greenpeace Australia. After
campaigning about the dangers of hazardous landfill dumps for many
years, Greenpeace's involvement is very reassuring to a public
that might otherwise be concerned about the history of this site.
In fact, Karla Bell, Cities and Coasts Campaigner for Greenpeace
Australia, made a representation about the environmental merits of
the Sydney bid, which did not canvass the problem of land
contamination, to the Commission when it visited Sydney earlier in
the year.45 Bell's submission made sufficient impression on the
IOC for it to make special mention of Greenpeace's involvement in
the Sydney bid in its Inquiry Commission Report into where to hold
the year 2000 Olympics published in July. It "noted with much
satisfaction the great emphasis being placed on environmental
protection in all aspects of the bidding process and the attention
being paid to working closely with environmental protection groups
such as Greenpeace".
Greenpeace's involvement in the Sydney bid arises from its
participation in the design of the proposed Olympic Village which
Bell claims "provides a prototype of future environmentally
friendly urban development for Australian cities and indeed all
cities around the world".46 Bell's focus on the development of a
showcase Olympic village represents the new face of Greenpeace
which aims to promote solutions rather than just sound the alarm
on environmental problems as it has done for the past 20 years.
However, not all Greenpeace campaigners are so ready to overlook
the problems of land contamination. Robert Cartmel, a toxics
campaigner for Greenpeace Australia, who specialises in chlorine
related issues, says that "there is every likelihood that the
remediation measures being undertaken at Homebush Bay won't
measure up." He says that this is "an area that would be
considered to be a Superfund site in the US." He warns that "when
it comes to leakage of toxic materials, it is not a question of
if, it is a question of when. There is no such thing as a safe
landfill".47
Whatever the truth about the long-term safety of the Homebush
site, it is clear that a full public discussion of the toxic waste
question has been suppressed by the desire of the government to
win the Olympics and the desire of some environmentalists to be
seen as "positive". Yet the absense of public debate and the
short-cut, low-cost remediation measures are anything but "green".
The claim that the 2000 Olympics will be green should be seen in
the same light as other green marketing claims, as a superficial
attempt to sell a product rather than a genuine attempt at change.
Dr Sharon Beder is a lecturer in the Department of Science and
Technology Studies at the University of Wollongong.
1 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1992.
2 This was successfully achieved before the decision was
announced The contamination of the site has been subject to a few
controlled media releases since the announcement.
3 SOBL, Sydney 2000 Environment Guidelines, March 1993.
4 Ibid., Greenpeace Australia, 'Greenpeace calls on International
Olympic Committee to adopt environmental criteria for games',
Media Release, 23 March 1993.
5 SOBL, 'Sydney 2000 - The environmental Olympics', Bulletin 33, 4
July 1993.
6 SOBL, 'Committee to Ensure Sydney Games are Green', News
Release, 21 December 1992.
7 Ros Kelly, 'World Environment Day and our environmental
olympics', 5 June 1993.
8 See for example, Fox and Associates, Homebush Bay Conservation
Study, Department of Environment and Planning, Sydney 1986;
9 See for example, Mitchell McCotter, Homebush Bay Interim
Development Strategy Hazards Assessment, Volume 1, Report No
89031-1, prepared for Premiers Department, 1989; Camp Scott
Furphy, Report on Contaminated Sites, Homebush Bay Development
Secretariat, June 1989.
10 Property Services Group, 'Briefing Document on Site Remediation
and Environmental Investigations at Homebush Bay', March 1992, p9.
11 See for example Dames and Moore, 'Site remediation works:
Haslams Creek North, Homebush Bay Development, NSWU, report for
Property Services Group, 11 July 1991.
12 See for example, Keys Young, Homebush Bay Area Draft Structure
Plan, Homebush Bay Corporation, September 1993, p.9.
13 Paper delivered at 1993 Environment Institute of Australia
National Conference, Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22 September 1993.
14 See for example Dames and Moore, 'Site remediation works: State
Sports Centre, Homebush Bay Development, NSWU, report for Property
Services Group, 1991.
15 John Pollack, The Toxicity of Chemical Mixtures: An
Introduction to Recent Developments in Toxicology, Centre for
Human Aspects of Science and Technology and The Public Interest
Advocacy Centre, Sydney, 1993.
16 Personal communication, August 1993.
17 Stuart Nicholson and Nirander Safaya, 'Restoring Hazardous
Waste Sites', Environment, Science and Technology 27(6), 1993, p.
1022.
18 ICF Pty. Ltd., 'Health and environmental risk assessment for
dioxins: Homebush Bay Redevelopment Area, volume 8, prepared for
Property Services Group of NSW, 5 February 1993, pp.9-10.
19 ICF Pty. Ltd., Volume 2 of 7, report prepared for Property
Services Group of NSW, 1993.
20 ICF Pty. Ltd., Volume 5 of 7, report prepared for Property
Services Group of NSW, 1993, p35.
21 personal communication, August 1993.
22 predecessor of the NSW Environmental Protection Authority, EPA.
23 Norman Rubinstein and John Wicklund, 'Dioxin contamination of
sediment and marine fauna in Homebush Bay', report for the State
Pollution Control Commission, January 1991, p. 12.
24 Paul Bishop, 'Contaminant Leaching from Solidified-Stabilized
Wastes', in D.William Tedder and Frederick Pohland, eds, Emerging
Technologies in Hazardous Waste Management II, American Chemical
Society, Washington DC, 1991, p. 303.
25 Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for the Assessment and
Management of Contaminated Sites, Australian and New Zealand
Environment and Conservation Council, National Health and Medical
Research Council, January 1992, p. 5.
26 Property Services Group, 'Briefing Document on Site Remediation
and Environmental Investigations at Homebush Bay', December 1992,
p. 8.
27 Ibid., p. 9.
28 Site guide at 1993 Environment Institute of Australia National
Conference, Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22 September 1993.
29 Property Services Group, December 1992, op.cit., p. 10.
30 Ibid., p. 9.
31 1993 Environment Institute of Australia National Conference,
Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22nd September 1993.
32 Australian and New Zealand Guidelines, op.cit., p. 41.
33 personal communication, August 1993.
34 John Pym, speaking at 1993 Environment Institute of Australia
National Conference, Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22 September 1993.
35 Jim Libby, paper delivered at 1993 Environment Institute of
Australia National Conference, Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22
September 1993.
36 personal communication, August 1993.
37 John Pym, paper delivered at 1993 Environment Institute of
Australia National Conference, Homebush Bay Field Trip, 22
September 1993.
38 Ibid.
39 Australian and New Zealand Guidelines, op.cit., pp. 7,9
40 Greens In Lowe, RSurvey - Homebush Bay Development', 1992.
41 Alan Gilpin, An Australian Dictionary of Environment and
Planning, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1990, p. 72.
42 Jeff Angel, 'Sydney's Olympic bid fails key environmental
test, Media Release, 17 June 1993.
43 Jeff Angel, 'Sydney's Green Olympics Bid: Issues of concern',
24 June 1993.
44 See for example, Urban Action, Autumn 1993.
45 Karla Bell, 'Australia's environmenal record and the Olympic
village' in SOBL, Significant Speeches, Issue No 1039-5695.
46 Greenpeace Australia, op.cit.
47 personal communication, July 1993.
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For further articles by Sharon Beder see the World Wide Web at the
following address:
http://www.uow.edu.au/faculties/arts/sts/sbeder/
which will be changing shortly to:
http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/
Sharon Beder, STS, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia fax:
+61 42 213 452 email: s.beder@uow.edu.au