It doesn’t really matter that Bleaney and co have been proved wrong so quickly.  They have achieved what they wanted, namely destroying my husband’s and my family’s livelihood.

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Mandy, you need to read stuff first spit ships later, according to the Merc this is the gist of what the good doctor said:

“He said the results obtained so far did not prove there was no problem, but said they had been helpful.”

What ever helpful means in this context, other then to facilitate a media release to get people like you to salivate a little.”

Taylor is a disgrace!

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It appears that all that is necessary to make what was potentially poisoned water potable is a carbon filter.

This filter has not only filtered out the organic poisons found in abundance in the scum floating on the surface, but has also filtered out the credibility of the work done by Drs Bleaney and Scammell, has filtered out the future criticism of non-organic poisons such as atrazine etc, and filtered out the criticism of plantations.

With a simple filter, the investments of Forestry, Gunns and MIS are now adequately protected and the money is safe. Nothing else needs to done. Great work guys!

Champagne and oysters, anyone?

Ben Lomond Water do not specify what type of activated carbon filter was used.  Nor how long it will be used.

Assuming a chemically activated filter this means KOH was most likely the activator, leaving positively activated carbon.  This will not work for inorganic toxins in solution as found in gum leaf oil or herbicides.  At least it should take out benzene.

Better than nothing but not as good as a holding tank that buffers the water for at least one month.  Melbourne Water use a reservoir and its three months, or for Yarra River water the Warneke Treatment plant. 

Of course before the political Tarago dam connection which added just 1.1% capacity, their water came from national parks.  No exotic species, no unapproved spraying but they still worry and there are constant Risk Management Reports added to from various sources.

They do have E.nitens around distribution dams and they are eyeballing them in a different way than before.

Educate the public Roscoe about the principle of detection limits for sampling, and publish the detection limits the common compounds tested for.

Not detectable - doesn’t equal absent from a sample.

Good one waterboy.  Not sure what your point is but it looks like a “shoot the messenger” shot.  I guess we’ll see more and more of this as the toxic nitens yarn unravels.  Dr Taylor is doing his job without showing favour to anyone. As will the EPA.

So we test everything in Tasmania for every compound known and unknown to humankind and we should then treat a “no detection” as not being reasonable proof that everything isn’t contaminated with everything.  You’ll just end up like a dog chasing its tail.

Instrumental methods of analysis (e.g. GC/MS) are so bloody sensitive these days that a “not detectable” is good enough for all reasonable people. The limit of detection is extremely low.  I personally have zero concern with detected compound values above a ND but below health values.  That can be a range of up to 5 orders of magnitude greater than the detection limit.  That’s illustrates just how low detection limits have become.

The simplest thing to do for human consumption would be to pipe water to the town supply from the river far above the plantation tree line.

If it was far enough up river spray drift would not be an issue.  The pipe could follow the river bed.  It could outlet into a series of tanks on a slope above the town.  These tanks would be used for filtering, testing purposes, settling, oxidation & carbonation, chlorination, fluoridation and pressure adjustment.  So no pumping required.  The whole thing runs only using gravity.

Anyone who gets water from the river along the pipe length could be connected to the pipe.  They would no longer need a pump if the pipe is designed for multiple outlets.

How do we know that these particular tests are Kosher Anyway !

    Personally ! i would only be happy with several checks !  and preferably done OUTSIDE the Country without any fear of interference that could be applied.
            d.d.

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Mr Davey (comment #8), you should rest happy that the tests Dr Taylor will do will be statistical sound. That is what professionals do to minimise the chance that a result was due to random error rather than a being true measure.  They will, I am sure, replicate both the number of samples they take and the analysis of each.  My good friend hugoagogo has previously highlighted the danger of N=1.  This is statistical speak for bad science. Unfortunately it gets practiced mainly in NE Tasmania.

My good friend hugoagogo has previously highlighted the danger of N=1.  This is statistical speak for bad science.

The original ‘statistic speak’ was about eight independent laboratory tests, two of which were to confirm the results of the other lab tests.

Pretty good scientific method, don’t you think?

The official tests results, with predictable monotony, came back with precisely the opposite results.

The first set were paid for out of the pocket of a private doctor concerned with the health of her patients - the second was by a set of people with vested interests in the results.

I know which set I would trust!