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Objectivity
| Manipulating the Media |
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Having suffered politically from accusations of secrecy, the government was not able to keep the second bioaccumulation study quiet. They were constantly pestered by reporters for the results of this study and it was released at a press conference by the Minister for the Environment. The second study had involved taking 8 samples of red morwong at varying distances from the three major Sydney outfalls and testing them for organochlorines and metals. This second study also showed high levels of organochlorines, although different ones. Chlordane, a pesticide, was found to be on average 12 times the NH&MRC maximum limits for fish caught within 3.5 km of Malabar and Hexachlorobenzene, HCB, an intractable waste produced by the ICI chemical plant at Botany, was found to be on average 3 times the NH&MRC limit within 3.5 km of Malabar. The analysis for heavy metals which was being done by the Water Board was incomplete but an interim report on those was released at the same time. The Minister for the Environment admitted that both the organochlorine report and the heavy metal report contained disturbing results and that the three sewage outfalls were directly implicated in the fish contamination. He said that the SPCC, the Health Department and the Department of Agriculture would hold urgent discussions on whether the fishing ban imposed by Agriculture Minister should be extended.[1] (The ban covered 500m around the outfalls but the study had shown that fish were contaminated between 500m and 3.5km from the outfalls.) The ban was not extended. The organochlorine report contained a page or two on the implications of the results written by a senior Health Department scientist. It described a major outbreak of HCB poisoning occurred in Turkey when people ate contaminated grain. It was estimated that these people had consumed 50-100 mg of HCB per day for a prolonged period. On this basis, it argued that fish would have to be far more contaminated than the NH&MRC limits to cause acute symptoms in humans.
The various government authorities were upset that this 'reassurance' was not reported by the media, which merely reported how many times the NH&MRC limits the concentrations of organochlorines in fish were. This was later cited as an example of the irresponsibility of the media, which had failed to ensure that official interpretations of the information were transmitted to the public.[3] Different tactics were therefore adopted when it came to the release of the finalised heavy metals report from the same study. The interim report on metals in the red morwong[4] released at the same time as the organochlorine report had included the concentrations of mercury, zinc, cadmium and copper and showed that average levels of mercury in fish caught at each site were consistently above NH&MRC maximum limits except around the Bondi outfall. This finding went largely unnoticed since it was overshadowed by the large amounts of organochlorines in the same fish. The final heavy metals report compiled by the Water Board was released in July at a press conference held by the Minister of the Environment. It now also contained analyses for Arsenic, Selenium, Lead and Nickel.[5] This time the Minister had an expert at the press conference to ensure the correct interpretations were conveyed to the media. By this time the fish industry was just beginning to recover from the blows received earlier in the year and the government was anxious to reassure people that it was safe to eat fish. Despite the fact that most of the fish sampled were over NH&MRC limits for mercury the Minister stated that the study showed there was no toxicological threat to humans from heavy metals discharged in effluent from ocean outfalls.[6] The report was reviewed by Professor Cairncross who was present at the press conference. Cairncross compared average levels of mercury in the Sydney fish to the highest levels found in fish from Minamata Bay in Japan where more than one hundred people died and hundreds more were sick from mercury poisoning after eating the fish there. He concluded that "treated sewage as presently discharged does not constitute a hazard in terms of heavy metal accumulation" [7] and he stated at the press conference that that one would have to eat 50 kg of red morwong a week continually "to get any real trouble".[8] The media left the press conference with the impression that the new report gave the fish a clean bill of health. On television that night news reporters asked why the ban on fishing at the outfalls was not to be lifted now and the Minister for Agriculture said he thought the ban should be lifted. The Minister for the Environment was even reported in the Herald the next day as saying that the "study proved that the effluent which was being discharged from treatment plants at Malabar, Bondi and North Head was not deemed to be a health hazard for the fish."[9] What the public were not told was that these red morwong were the very same red morwong that had been analysed for organochlorines a few months earlier and far from being safe to eat or proving the sewage effluent was not a health hazard for fish had been a cause of the fishing ban being imposed in the first place. In fact, the tenor of the press conference and the declaration by Cairncross, caused the fact that NH&MRC maximum limits for mercury had been consistently exceeded to be given no significance by the media. The government had almost succeeded in controlling the interpretation of the study but environmentalists stepped in the next day to point out what they saw as a deception. After this Cairncross was reported to have backed away from the statements he had made about the fish being safe to eat. Cairncross had said
REFERENCES
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© 2003 Sharon Beder