PFAS residues could risk overseas beef markets: says former AgForce president

Larry Acton, who was the inaugural president of AgForce, is concerned that if the highly toxic and long lasting chemicals, PFAS, are found as a residue in Australian beef it could cost the red meat industry millions of dollars in exports.

But, it's not only overseas markets for red meat that are at risk, contamination of any Australian food product could tarnish the country's "clean, green" food image in the eyes of overseas customers.

Mr Acton's comments follow the discovery of high readings of PFAS in bore water on a property, Frog's Hollow, 8 km from Biloela that he and his wife, Beth, bought in April, 2021 where they planned to relocate their Braford stud.

The contamination only came to light when Mr Acton was approached by CS Energy officials wanting to test their bores three weeks after the property purchase settled.

Mr Acton said one of the reasons they bought the property was for its high-flowing main bore which was one that subsequently tested positive to high concentrations of PFAS.

"Over 50 years ago, when my father first started talking about me buying land of my own, he said 'don't look at anything that doesn't have a good water supply'," he said.

"We have either lived on a river all our lives or had a good permanent water supply and that was the reason why this place was so attractive because that water supply of 13,000 to 14,000 gallons an hour met my father's philosophy...and then we find out six weeks later it's contaminated."

CS Energy owns Callide Power Station which used PFAS foam - the same product that was used at Australian defence force - for fire fighting. Runoff water containing the chemical has leached out of its settling ponds over a number of years into the underground aquifer, said Mr Acton.

Along with numerous other landholders in a 10 km radius of the power station, whose bores were also found to be contaminated with PFAS, Mr Acton then started receiving truck loads of clean water every week, courtesy of CS Energy, for the house and garden.

Only recently, CS Energy installed a trial filtration plant - believed to cost $25,000 - on the Acton's property which, Mr Acton said, does not do the job of supplying clean water for his cattle.

"It certainly does clean the water, but it doesn't supply enough water to even run two hoses in the garden," he said.

"The current filtration plant in our shed will only put out about 680 gallons per hour fully wound up. If we run 125 head of backgrounding cattle, we'll need about 2000 gallons per day without any consideration for the house and garden."

Mr Acton said CS Energy would not accept any responsibility for the livestock on the property which meant the cattle were still drinking contaminated water to this day.

"They rely on the DAF (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries) position that PFAS does not affect the health of cattle and so refuse to discuss clean water for our cattle. They also do not recognise that we are a farming business and not a lifestyle block," he said.

As a result of the contamination, the Actons have increased the capacity of one dam on their property to reduce the intake of bore water by their cattle at a cost of $18,000 and outlayed $30,000 to bitumen part of their entry road past the house to minimise dust stirred up by water truck deliveries.

CS Energy has refused to meet those costs despite acknowledging, through their supply of fresh water to the Actons and others, that they are, in part, responsible for the PFAS contamination in the bore water.

After looking at websites around the world and in Australia, Mr Acton said the thing that worried him the most was the problem with chemical buildup of PFAS in meat.

"We run a cattle business here and the Department of Primary Industries in Queensland...SAFEMEAT and all the other rural organisations that should be trying to find a way to fix this seem to want to ignore it," he said.

"I am appalled, I'm outraged at the way the department has absolved itself of any responsibility.

"I am outraged that none of the cattle industry bodies have picked this up because there are hundreds of sites around Australia (that could be affected) and there are many that have proven to be a problem already for human health and animal health.

"And we're still sitting and fighting over whether something should be done and not what should be done."

After his main water bore tested positive to PFAS contamination, Mr Acton was told by CS Energy not to eat any eggs from chickens on the property or any vegetables grown on the property using the bore water.

Mr Acton said the contaminated bore was one of the reasons he and his wife decided to discontinue their Riverton Braford stud after 55 years.

"Last year, we actually sold our stud for a number of reasons - obviously I'm getting older and it was very dry, but ever since we bought the place and found out that the water was contaminated, my wife, Beth, said 'we shouldn't be running breeders because they were going to be there for 10 years and this (PFAS) will build up in the meat. We should be just turning cattle over in short periods so there's less likelihood of it building up'," he said.

"We made that decision to sell because we didn't want to risk what might happen to the beef industry overall and our own business."

Mr Acton said there were miles of examples of PFAS chemicals building up in the fat in meat.

"The half life of this chemical is not like the chemical we've used to control ticks and lice on cattle in the past which has a half life of mostly less than 42 days. In other words, the contamination level halves within that six week period. This (PFAS) is years - we still don't know how many years, but it's many years," he said.

As a former industry leader, Mr Acton is worried that Australia does not yet have maximums residue levels for PFAS unlike other markets like the EU which introduced an MRL for PFAS in beef in 2021.

"That's where we got in to trouble in the '80s with chemical residues such as helix from cotton trash and organochlorines in beef. Other countries started testing for those chemicals and Australia didn't and we didn't monitor them," he said.

"The (beef) industry in Australia, as far as I am aware, doesn't have a level of chemical PFAS acceptance in meat so surely there is a potential market problem in the future unless we get in and do something about it and do it quick," he said.

Mr Acton said industry bodies would argue that there were millions of cattle in Australia and probably only hundreds of thousands that could potentially be affected by PFAS.

"But you've only got to have one show up in the wrong place and get pinged and then it becomes an issue," he said.

"The cattle industry organisations in Australia including Meat and Livestock Australia, which is supposedly all about our marketing and developing and maintaining markets for the industry, should have addressed this issue years ago.

"In 2002, there was the major problem occurring at Oakey. Ever since then, there's been problems occurring in different places - Katherine, Williamtown...and possibly Tasmania with contaminated biomass.

"But, there's possibly close to 1000 sites which have used PFAS foam - every airport in Australia, every mine site in Australia, every power station and other areas we don't know about that could have used this chemical with their fire fighting equipment."

In 2019, the federal government banned PFAS foam for fire fighting, but Mr Acton believes it was irresponsible of industry bodies to not do something about PFAS contamination in livestock 20 years ago when the issue first came to light at Oakey.

He said industry tended to wait for a disaster instead of trying to fix the problem before it became a problem.

"I think it's irresponsible of the industry for not picking this up 20 years ago, but certainly five years ago (when it was banned) they should have jumped in straight away and done something because they had the examples," he said.

Mr Acton said he had no faith in the current federal government doing anything about the issue despite the fact it instigated another inquiry to look into the issue at Oakey, Williamtown and Katherine.

It's understood that the latest inquiry led by former Queensland public servant Jim Varghese was an election promise by federal Labor concerned about losing the federal seat of Williamtown because of push back from disgruntled residents near Williamtown Airforce Base

"Industry bodies need to wake up, see what the problem could potentially be and do something about it," Mr Acton said.

A response from MLA to questions from QCL said "SAFEMEAT has established a working group to consider the implications and any potential changes as a result of the recently established EU maximum levels for perfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances in certain foodstuffs" with MLA and Integrity Systems Company providing input as required.

On the SAFEMEAT website, however, a statement dated July 1, 2020, and headlined "No changes to system as a result of PFAS' says: "SAFEMEAT has considered this issue and agreed that currently no action is required by producers regarding PFAS to meet Livestock Production Assurance program requirements or when completing NVDs."

QCL is yet to find out who is on the new committee, when it was established and what its remit.

SAFEMEAT is a partnership between industry and government to engage and collaborate on policy that ensures Australian meat products adhere to the highest standards of safety from the paddock to the plate.

Specific questions sent to CS Energy asking - how many landholders had been affected: how much were the water deliveries and filtration plant costing taxpayers; how were they disposing of the contaminated filters from the filtration plant; if any bores below Teys abattoir had tested positive to PFAS; were they going to compensate landholders for the devaluation of their properties; and why weren't they supplying clean water for livestock where bores were contaminated went unanswered.

In a written statement, a CS Energy spokesperson said CS Energy was continuing a significant program of work to understand the legacy use of PFAS near Callide Power Station.

"We are working cooperatively with the Department of Environment of and Science under the framework of an Environmental Evaluation, which requires us to complete certain investigations and sampling within specific time frames," the spokesperson said.

"The health of the community and our employees is CS Energy's key priority and has guided our actions throughout our PFAS monitoring program which commenced in 2021.

"This includes providing alternative water for domestic use to landholders who have recorded a sample above the Australian drinking water guidelines."

CS Energy's second submission to the Environmental Evaluation is due in March this year. An independent risk assessor has been engaged to do to a Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment.

AgForce Cattle and Cattle Australia were contacted for comment, but were yet to respond.