And their anger has only been further inflamed by a NSW Health report saying there’s no evidence of a cancer cluster caused by contamination which the Department of Defence allegedly hid from them for three years.
Jarrod Sansom’s family lived there for six generations, and sold the family farm 10 years ago, before Defence admitted to contamination going back decades.
“NSW Health’s study indicates there’s no cancer cluster.
The residents can’t sell contaminated properties which are worthless, they can’t drink the water, and they can’t expect answers until 2020 — if they live that long.
This can be fixed tomorrow.” Resident Jenny Robinson told ACA she had been diagnosed with two types of breast cancer.
Jenny wasn’t included in the NSW Health study.
The NSW Health study last month dismissed that there is a cancer cluster in the area after investigating 50 cases, saying “it “does not indicate evidence of a cancer cluster in Williamtown”.
Then the Cancer Council of Australia said NSW Health had done nothing wrong in the way the study — which used “reportable” data from 10,000 people, the bulk of whom live outside the contaminated area — was conducted.
Last year, the Newcastle Herald identified 50 cases of cancer in 15 years in people who had lived or were living in a five-kilometre area just south of the Williamtown RAAF base known as the “red zone”.
Source:ABC Meanwhile, the Department of Defence knew the water at Williamtown was laced with toxins for three years before it warned the public.