On October 21, the National Health and Medical Research Council announced that they would be reviewing current PFAS guidelines for a number of PFAS chemicals including: PFOS, PFHxS, PFOA and PFBS. Gen X chemicals would also be granted a guideline level. The new guidelines will take into account recent developments in the United States where PFAS chemicals had their guidelines substantially reduced in April 2024. Under the proposed guidelines Australia would reduce their PFOS guideline in drinking water from 70ng/L to 4ng/L, PFHxS from 70ng/L to 30ng/L and PFOA from 560ng/L to 200ng/L. PFBS has been proposed to have a guideline of 1000ng/L.
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Over two years ago FoE produced a series of blogs looking at PFAS contamination in Victoria, based on a number of Freedom of Information Requests to water authorities. One of the blogs focused on drinking water. It is still the only source of this information in Victoria!!!
This blog has been updated as new information has come to hand as the new proposed guidelines have profound implications in terms of what areas of Victoria at now at most risk from PFAS chemicals in drinking water.
In September FoE sent a Freedom of Information application to Melbourne Water regarding PFAS and pesticide contamination. Two months later the FoI is still being processed. Oddly enough on October 21 Melbourne Water published a new PFAS page on their website. It now appears that Melbourne Water have restarted monitoring for PFAS for the first time since 2017.
Some PFAS monitoring did occur by Melbourne Water between 2010 and 2017. PFOA was detected at 8ng/L in 2011 and 0.11ng/L at the Yarra River offtake to Sugarloaf Reservoir in August 2015.
Melbourne Water currently test for PFAS at seven locations. Two sites in the Yarra Ranges, two sites in the Tarago catchment, one site near Maroondah catchment, one site in the mid-Yarra catchment and one site near Yan Yean Catchment. Recent testing carried out after August 2024 has detected no PFAS chemicals.
Melbourne Water tests for three PFAS chemicals PFOS, PFHxS and PFOA. The limit of reporting used by Melbourne Water is 0.002 micrograms per litre (2ng/L) meaning that detections below this amount, which would be the bulk of detections, will not be found.
Stop Press: This somewhat 'cryptic' message was published on the Melbourne Water website in late November 2024. It would appear that PFAS have been detected in the Melbourne Water supply system (probably on November 6) but well below current guidelines eg PFOS+PFHxS <70ng/L, PFAS <560ng/L.
Stop Press 2: A Freedom of Information request to North East Water in December 2024, has indicated that the highest levels of PFAS recorded in a Victorian water supply occurred at Lake Mulwala on the Murray River in July 2023. PFOS was detected at 0.29ug/L and PFHxS at 0.037ug/L. The PFOS levels were 72.5 above the proposed PFOS guidelines. A smaller PFAS pollution event was detected at Lake Mulwala in February 2018.
Melbourne Water also supply water to most water supplies in the Greater Western Water supply region (west and north west of Melbourne). A Freedom of Information application received in late November 2024 from Greater Western Water, revealed 27 PFAS detections in six separate water supplies including the raw water supplies for Bacchus Marsh, Darley, Lancefield, Melton, Melton South and Woodend over 2023/24. Of the 27 detections, 8 occurred at Djerriwarrh Reservoir on 14 August 2023. PFOS was detected at 53ng/L or 13.25 times the proposed new guideline for PFOS. PFBA was also detected at 130ng/L. No guideline is proposed for PFBA. The August 2023 incident is the highest impact PFAS pollution incident in a drinking water supply in Victoria. Eight separate PFAS chemicals were detected PFBS 3ng/L, PFBA 130ng/L, PFHpA 2ng/L, PFHxS 4ng/L, PFOS 53ng/L, PFOA 4ng/L, PFPeA 7ng/L and PFHxA 4ng/L. The Djerriwarrh incident is interesting as most of the catchment upstream of the reservoir is forested. So what was the source of the PFAS?
Recent testing for PFAS in Sydney shows that Sydney Water are testing at limits 20 times less than that done by Melbourne Water. 64% of positive test results carried out on June 24 by Sydney Water were under 2ng/L. On September 10 2024, PFAS was detected at 0.7 ng/L, 45 metres under the water surface of Sydney's Warragamba Dam, Sydney's main drinking water source. If a similar issue was occurring in a reservoir in Melbourne, Melbourne Water would be none the wiser.
Moorabool Water Treatment Plant, located 30km north west of Geelong supplies drinking water to areas of Geelong with drinking water with a combined population of ~180,000. About 94% of these people would also receive drinking water from other sources, meaning that about 11,000 people would receive their drinking water solely from Moorabool WTP. Was Moorabool WTP designed to filter out PFAS chemicals? Note that the Moorabool Treatment plant is located about 25km south west of the notorious fire training facility of Fiskville where PFAS and other contaminants were detected at very high levels some years ago. PFOS was detected in sediment at Moorabool Water Treatment Plant as early as October 2012 and in very high amounts in surface water upstream in Eclipse Creek by independent researchers. Barwon Water did not start testing until 2017, but Fiskville had been in operation for years prior to 2017. Note too that the ecological guideline for PFOS in freshwater has a 99% trigger level of 9.1ng/L. Water coming down the Moorabool catchment breached the ecological guideline three times in four years. What is PFAS doing to the ecology of the river?
In the FoE blog on PFAS in Victorian drinking water supplies published two years ago, using the 2017 Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, only one breach to the Australian Drinking Water guidelines was located.That incident was at Wangaratta from PFAS in the Ovens River detected by North East Water in March 2018. (Another incident occurred in raw water at Sale on 21/3/21 where PFHxS+PFOS were detected at 0.088ug/L making this the most serious incident in a Victorian Drinking Water supply in regards to PFAS).
Whereas in comparison to the October 2024 proposed Australian Guidelines, there would be 24 breaches, albeit mostly in raw water, with 5 of the top 20 incidents occurring at the Moorabool Water Treatment Plant which provides areas of Geelong with drinking water.
If one compiles all Victorian PFAS detections, where a PFAS detection at ADWG PFAS guideline = 100, then the 2024 proposed revisions to the ADWG's PFAS guidelines show that Lake Mulwala, Moorabool WTP*, Djerriwarrh Reservoir and Sale are the most risky water supply in Victoria in terms of PFAS contamination. The Lake Mulwala detections in July 2023 'dwarf' other PFAS detections in Victoria. This is not to say that Geelong, Melton, Darley or Sale residents have been drinking dangerously high levels of PFAS, it means that the raw water supplying much of these locations has been contaminated with PFAS levels which will soon be considered to be unsafe. 57% of Barwon Water results between 2017 and 2024 at Moorabool came in <2ng/L, 43% came in as positive. Is Fiskville the source of the pollution with Beremboke and Eclipse Creeks providing much of the pollution? (*this number could be reduced somewhat as seperate detections of PFOS and PFHxS are not published by Barwon Water). Data from Djerriwarrh has only been compiled by Greater Western Water for the past 2 years.
This graph highlights PFAS detections in raw water at the Moorabool Water Treatment Pre-Treatment. The average level detected was 4.286ng/L over a 6 year period, 6 positive detections and 8 'negative' detections. Barwon Water also test for PFOA which has not been detected. The Australian Drinking Water Guideline for PFOS+PFHxS during this period was 70ng/L, meaning than the average PFOS+PFHxS detection was 6% of the guideline level. Due to this low level Barwon Water would have dismissed these detections as being 'insignificant'. However, with the new proposed guidelines for PFOS to be reduced to 4ng/L and PFHxS to 30ng/L, there would be 5 PFOS+PFHxS detections in breach of the proposed Australian Guideline, with three or four detections breaching the guideline by 3-4 times. This should then mean that Barwon Water would need to test drinking water in the reticulated water supply and that Barwon Water would need to find the source of the pollution and issue the polluter with a Notice of Contravention for Water Protection (Water Act 1989. Section 169(1): Notice of contravention for water supply protection).
In regards to Australia's 2017 PFAS guideline levels, 19 of the 20 incidents would have been regarded "not significant" and as such would not require water authorities to test for PFAS in reticulated water, however the new proposed 2024 guidelines would see 18 ADWG breaches which would warrant further investigation into the source of the PFAS pollution and testing for drinking water itself, not just raw water.
| 25 Highest PFAS Detections Victorian Drinking Water Supplies 2015-2024 (+ data from Barwon Water) Breaching Oct 2024 proposed Australian PFAS Drinking Water Guidelines |
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| Location | Date | PFAS Chemicals ng/L | Comparison to current ADWG | Comparison to Oct 24 Proposed Guidelines |
| Eclipse Creek (tributary of the Moorabool River. Site ~26km upstream of Moorabool Water Treatment Plant) | Oct 2012 | PFOS 3140 | 44.8x | 785x |
| Eclipse Creek (tributary of the Moorabool River. Site ~18km upstream of Moorabool Water Treatment Plant) | Oct 2012 |
PFOS 580 | 8.3x | 145x |
| Yarrawonga at Lake Mulwala offatke | 13/7/23 | PFOS 290, PFHpA 8, PFOA 19, PFNA 4, PFHpS 5, PFPeS 4, PFPeA 9, PFHxS 37 | 4.8x + 3.4% | 72.5x (PFOS) + 1.23x (PFHxS) + 9.5% (PFOA) |
| Sale Bore Raw Water | 3/2/21 | PFOS 81 + PFHxS 7 + 6:2 FTS 11 | ~1.3x | ~20.25x+~23.3x |
| Djerriwarrh Reservoir | 14/8/23 | PFOS 53 + PFHxS 4ng/L | 81.4% | 13.25x +13.3% |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 18/8/21 | PFHxS + PFOS 16 | 22.8% | ~4x? |
| Yarrawonga at Lake Mulwala offtake | 8/2/18 | PFOS 15 | 21.4% | 3.75x |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 7/10/22 | PFHxS + PFOS 15 | 21.4% | ~3.75x? |
| Wahgunyah inlet to water treatment plant | 8/2/18 | PFOS 13, PFOA 2 | 18.6% + 0.36% | 3.25x + 1% |
| Gellibrand | 2/1/18 | PFOS 13 | 18.6% | 3.25x |
| Teesdale | 15/1/18 | PFOS 13 | 18.6% | 3.25x |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 15/10/18 | PFHxS + PFOS 13 | 18.6% | ~3.25x? |
| Wangaratta Ovens River Offtake | 6/3/18 | PFHxS 90, PFPeS 2 | 1.28x | 3x |
| Lorne | 16/1/18 | PFOS 11 | 15.7% | 2.75x |
| Wodonga (Raw Water) | 9/11/17 | PFOS 10 | 14.3% | 2.5x |
| Seaspray raw water inlet to water treatment plant | 9/5/17 | PFOS 3, PFHxS 47 | 71.4% | 75% + 1.6x |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 27/8/21 | PFHxS + PFOS 7 | 10% | ~1.75x? |
| Seaspray (Raw Water) | 8/12/20 | PFHxS+PFOS 7 | 10% | ~1.75x |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 30/12/21 | PFHxS + PFOS 6 | 8.6% | ~1.5x? |
| Djerriwarrh Reservoir | 18/3/24 | PFOS 5 | 7.1% | 1.25x |
| Briagalong inlet to water treatment plant | 9/5/17 | PFOS 2, PFHxS 26 | 40% | 50%+86.7% |
| Sale Reticulation Site | 14/5/18 | PFOS 4 | 5.7% | = |
| Briagalong Inlet | 12/9/17 | PFOS 4 | 5.7% | = |
| Korong Vale | 18/6/24 | PFOS 4 | 5.7% | = |
| Moorabool Water Treatment Plant | 12/9/19 | PFHxS + PFOS 4 | 5.7% | ~=? |
| Upper Stony Creek Reservoir | 12/9/19 | PFHxS + PFOS 4 | 5.7% | ~= |
Interesting to note that on October 21 2024 the ABC NEWS used the above map to highlight changes to the Australian PFAS guidelines. The map looks suspiciously similar to a map that FoE has been creating voluntarily over the past 5 years with the invaluable assistance of ActionSkills. There was no reference by the ABC made about the source information for the PFAS map they used, made on the back of voluntary labour by ActionSkills and FOE.
The original PFAS Map
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For more information contact Anthony Amis: [email protected]