Queensland authorities are facing a 'worst-case-scenario' with the infestations of red imported fire ants found at the Oakey air base, west of Toowoomba, likely being transported into the area in turf sods.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In what would be a significant system failure for the National Fire Ant Eradication Program, authorities have isolated a possible vector for the spread being slabs of soil and turf carted from a turf farm within the south-east Queensland exclusion zone to the Darling Downs for remediation building and ground works.
Alarmingly, a source with knowledge of the situation, speaking with anonymity to provide detail, said new infestations had also been located at other local government and Defence sites around the region and a strong correlation exists between the supplier and the infestations.
The DAF have conducted genetic testing on the nests to determine if there is a connection between the different sites and species.
The department have been treating the nests with insecticide by hand and with drones on-base and casting a wide net around the region.
However, Federal member for Groom Garth Hamilton said the Queensland Labor Government must be proactive in immediately auditing the national eradication program it runs to determine if the situation was a consequence of poor control and detection procedures.
"We are talking about a mass distribution of fire ants across government sites, the Queensland government's environmental credentials are now in tatters," he said.
"If these fire ants have been imported into the area by turf then we have a significant issue and that is a legitimate question the Queensland state government needs to answer.
"There is no more effective means of spreading fire ants than turf and I really hope we have not seen the system fail so completely that this has happened."
The DAF were contacted for comment on whether they were honing in on transplated turf as the missing link to the spread and if new sites had been found however it decided not provide a response.
The situation follows a scathing report handed down by a Senate committee last week that recommended the government immediately improve delivery of the eradication program.
It added that "notwithstanding funding boosts" there had been little progress over time regarding the transparency, governance and coordination of the reforms needed to eradicate RIFA.
Defence officials at Oakey alerted the DAF immediately after the ants were discovered on April 16 and stopped all maintenance and grounds work on site to ensure there is no spread. The DAF initially confirmed 78 nests were found at Oakey but this is reportedly now more than 100.
Experts said transmission risks are low from the base with either aircraft or vehicle traffic as a queen, nest, eggs and workers are normally needed to establish a new colony, such as would be the case in large-scale soil movement.
Defence also does not perform their own building repairs and the schedule of works, performed over the past three years, was contracted to outside companies.
The nests are believed to have escaped detection for so long due to heavy rainfall across the region over the recent past triggering lush grass growth in the black soil and concealing the nests.
Defence personal also wear heavy boots and other protective gear that would have protected them from what can be painful to deadly bites depending on an individual's reaction.
Local Councils are believed to be currently unaware of the situation.
After being contacted by ACM Agri, Mr Hamilton revealed that he wrote to Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt on Wednesday to stress the urgency of the situation after hearing reports from stakeholders and locals that authorities were looking at the vector of spread being turf contractors.
The Liberal National Party MP said fire ants being imported from the exclusion zone to the area in consignments of turf or dirt was the 'worse-case scenario'.
"It has been brought to my attention by residents and businesses that there has been a lack of information being provided to the community about the location, detection, testing and response mechanisms being put in place," the letter said.
"The containment and management of the biosecurity risks posed by fire ants should be the immediate concern.
"I am calling on all levels of government and the relevant biosecurity agency to be upfront with our community to better help manage the risk and prevent further spread. Beyond the immediate threat of fire ant, a failed management process poses significant real and perceived reputational risk to the community."
He said the current risk goes beyond the Darling Downs with the new infestations at the tip of the Great Artesian Basin raising the risk of further downstream contamination through the Murray-Darling system.
Fire ants are known to spread by rafting down waterways.
The situation has farmers calling for urgent government action, fearing the pest will spread through one of the world's largest freshwater aquifers and trigger a 40 per cent reduction in agricultural output.
A 2021 strategic review of the $1.2 billion National Fire Ant Eradication Program found the pest could cost the beef industry $300 million per annum, wheat $200m and $130m to other crops if not contained.
The National Fire Ant Eradication Program is managed and delivered by state and territory governments and supported by Commonwealth funding
Under the Biosecurity Act 2014, all Queenslanders have a general biosecurity obligation to manage biosecurity risks and threats on property they own, manage, or work on and must report nests within 24 hours of sighting them.
In a statement released this week, DAF said it was prioritising eradication activities in Oakey with intensive surveillance and treatment continues up to 5 kilometres out from the detection site to protect the area and ensure no undetected fire ants and nests remain.
A spokesperson said compliance and tracing investigations are continuing, to help determine how the ants arrived in the area, with part of the process tracing the origins of the nests "to determine genetics, social form, and prospect for spread, be that by flight, land, or waterway".
"We have successfully contained and eradicated fire ant incursions on several occasions," the spokesperson said.
"Outlying detections can happen outside the infestation area from time to time and we have procedures in place to deal with this.
"These invasive pests like to nest in organic materials, such as soil, hay, mulch, manure, quarry products, turf and potted plants, and human-assisted movement - knowingly or otherwise - poses a risk to Australia's environment, economy and outdoor way of life.
"Anyone dealing with organic materials sourced from within Queensland's fire ant biosecurity zones must use fire ant-safe practices if they intend to move the product to a new location."
It is unknown if the ants could have been transported prior to the establishment of the exclusion zone.
Meanwhile, 10 recommendations were contained in the scathing Don't Let This Come Back to Bite Us report tabled on April 18 by the Senate Standing committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport, including that the federal and state and territory governments urgently review the current levels of funding for the $1.2 billion eradication program to ensure they were adequate to eradicate the pest by 2032.
"RIFA's ability to spread across the majority of Australia if not contained could have disastrous consequences for Australia's environment and economic output," the report said.
The committee also said slow decision-making, particularly in the early years, and reduced funding had contributed "significantly" to the spread of RIFA to become a mammoth infestation area.
It said while eradication remained a possibility, several fundamental changes needed to be made immediately to stop red ants spreading, particularly governments working harder to increase compliance with existing movement controls, "including increasing biosecurity spot checks at border crossings".
