Older houses higher metals risk, university says

Once complete, the Healthy Water, Healthy Lives report will form part of Mr Harvey’s PhD thesis.

Mr Harvey’s supervisor, Macquarie University Professor of Environmental Sciences Mark Taylor, said the project was a service to the community.

“The program through the CWA shows quite clearly there is a real interest in science and the environment,” Prof Taylor said.

“I don’t think any other university has done this sort of work, where it’s gone out and put it in the consciousness of communities in rural and remote Australia quite this way.”

Prof Taylor said it reached out and delivered important findings to people who mattered.

“The university is funded by the public and this is a way we assist with our research in a meaningful and constructive way, to gain a greater understanding of people’s home and domestic environments,” he said.

The university will soon release the results of a study of reticulation systems in Tasmania and has conducted research in other areas. 

“We’ve looked at the pipes that deliver water, the large scale gravity mains, in the Hunter Valley and Western Australia, and also we’ve examined lead from pipes around the world,” he said.

“Often they use lead collars which are often discarded when they’re being replaced.

“That soil then gets contaminated and can expose native and domestic fauna to elevated concentrations of lead.”

Prof Taylor said environmental lead contamination did not “just reside with mining and smelting” or in inner cities.

“It lingers on in older houses through paint and old lead pipes, and the research is pretty clear about that,” he said.

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