FEW answers and "appalling communication" by government agencies dealing with potentially contaminated water around RAAF Base Williamtown have caused anger in the Port community.
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Williamtown and Fullerton Cove residents were warned in a media report and later a letterbox drop on Friday, September 4, to take precautions after chemicals were found in some water and fish in the area.
Also read: Answers wanted on Williamtown water
The chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), are believed to be legacy fire-fighting chemicals used at Williamtown RAAF Base until 2008.
It is not known what health effects PFOS or PFOA causes in people.
Residents in the Williamtown and Fullerton Cove areas were told not to drink bore water, eat eggs from chickens that had drank the bore water, or eat fish caught from the area.
Tilligerry Peninsula oyster farmers were told by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Fisheries last Friday that they were being shut down and experts were sent out in the field to collect samples.
No fish or shellfish including oysters are to be removed from Fullerton Cove or Upper Tilligerry Creek for one month.
"While at this stage any risk to human health appears to be low, the NSW government is taking a precautionary approach to this preliminary advice and is working with the Department of Defence to determine the extent and potential impact of these off-site chemicals," a NSW Environment Protection Authority statement said.
Lindsay Clout from the Fullerton Cove Residents Action Group, formed to keep the area's drinking water supply safe from coal seam gas exploration, said the "whole issue raises more questions than it answers".
There had been "appalling communication" by government agencies.
"We fought long and hard for three years on the whole foundation that the fight was to protect the ground water and now this," he said.
"They say the military stopped using the chemicals in 2008 then how hasn't it appeared in surface water studies until now?
"How, when they did the Environmental Impact Statement over a couple of years for the joint strike fighter, didn't anyone find these chemicals in the water?"
The action group was to meet on Monday night to form a strategy about what it would do next.
In a statement, the Department of Defence said "the health and safety of people who reside near our bases and defence personnel who work, or have worked, at these bases is a high priority".
EPA is expected to arrange a community forum to discuss the issue.
