CHINCHILLA, Queensland, watermelon grower Terry O'Leary says claims that locally grown melons have been contaminated via toxic coal seam gas (CSG) mining discharge water are “incorrect and fabricated”.
Mr O’Leary has raised concerns about the contents of a letter to the editor published in a small rural Victorian community newspaper, the Mirboo North Times.
The March 4 letter, claiming to be written by Drouin, Victoria, poultry farmer Maureen Versteden, said the author had bought a watermelon in mid-May 2014 that “tasted very strongly like acid and had a strange chemical like taste”.
Ms Versteden then launched an investigation which linked the watermelon purchased in Victoria to a series of assumptions about its production methods and water-use practices in the CSG industry in Chinchilla, Queensland.
The lengthy letter concluded: “Seeing as the Chinchilla area has been in a terrible drought for at least three years I suspect that a few farmers have been convinced by the gas companies that the untreated water is okay and they have put untreated contaminated water straight onto their crops, in which case the soil would now be contaminated”.
An angry Mr O’Leary said he has now contacted the publication seeking a retraction of the letter.
But he was further incensed this week when high profile Sydney radio personality Alan Jones used the letter as the basis of an attack linking “contaminated” CSG discharge water to escalating public food safety concerns, including the recent Hepatitis A outbreak from frozen imported berries from China.
Mr O’Leary said the letter and subsequent amplification of its misleading contents were “seriously damaging” the melon industry’s reputation.
In his radio segment, Mr Jones referred to the letter and how its author became “suspicious” of the “funny acidy taste of watermelon” and where it was grown and water used in its production.
The outspoken broadcaster described the letter-writer’s subsequent research work as “methodical and diligent investigations” which resulted in the production of several “facts”.
Those “facts” included an assertion that the watermelon was most probably grown around Chinchilla, which has faced drought and has a “massive” CSG industry that’s faced an issue of “toxic backwater from fracking”.
He said another “fact” was that the solution for “mostly foreign owned” mining companies was to re-inject water back into aquifers or supply it to local farmers
“Fact” number five was that none of the watermelons are being tested and the same probably goes for rockmelons, he said.
“The problem is it’s now clear our Australian consumers are being exposed to a vile and disgraceful devil’s brew of chemicals and toxins in food of this kind,” Mr Jones said.
“The melons are eaten by the health conscious and fed to kids in their lunch boxes.
“This of course comes hard on the heels of Chinese frozen berries scandal, only this time it’s Australian grown food that we once would have trusted to be healthy.”
Mr Jones said he didn’t want any harm to melon growers and farmers – but the water issue of CSG companies must be put under the “spotlight”.
He said the people of Australia must demand “rigorous testing by independent bodies, to establish that our inland water supplies are safe from the contamination from these industries and that our farmers can water their crops and their stock with full confidence that the water that their bringing up from underground is safe for human consumption”.
“We can’t afford to have our export markets potentially tarnished and we can’t be naive,” he said.
In a detailed response, Mr O’Leary said a watermelon can take on a bitter, metallic taste if it’s green or over-ripe.
“This is what Ms Versteden would have been experiencing; a piece of fruit that was unfortunately not harvested at its premium freshness,” he said.
“Additionally, no Chinchilla watermelon grower uses bore water to irrigate their crops.
“It is all from surface water.”
Mr O’Leary said only one grower in the Chinchilla area had CSG wells in their vicinity and the vast majority were located 40 kilometres or more from the nearest CSG site, upstream from any activity.
He said every watermelon grower - like all horticultural producers in Australia - are also tested by an independent body, Freshcare.
In this process, all soil, water and produce are tested annually by an independent laboratory for contamination, he said.
“No Chinchilla grower has ever returned a positive test from Freshcare’s implementation,” he said.
“Through this Freshcare accreditation and with our customers, we have 100 per cent traceability.
“All Ms Versteden had to do was ask the produce manager of the store where this melon was purchased and the packaging it came in would have had the grower’s name, address and date of harvest on the cardboard box.
“Unfortunately, she did not do this.”
Mr O’Leary also claimed to have possession of an email written to the Darling Downs Health unit, which contacted the Australian Melon Association which in turn responded to Mrs Versteden, informing her that the fruit would not be from Chinchilla.
“She ignored this to suit her own made up agenda,” he said.
Mr O’Leary said another claim in the letter misrepresented a comment from the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s Rick Wilkinson at a Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) meeting on October 15 last year in Melbourne.
In the letter, the author claimed to have asked Mr Wilkinson if water from gas wells was going straight onto water melon plans and he responded “yes”.
“We have contacted representatives from the VFF who were present and facilitating this meeting and have they have stated that this alleged comment from Rick Wilkinson is false,” Mr O’Leary said.
“And there were approximately 20 people at that meeting who will confirm that this is again, a fabrication.
Mr Wilkinson told Fairfax Media that he did not state at the VFF meeting, “nor wish to leave any doubt that I might have stated, or implied that CSG water is used on food crops without applying the highest standards of testing, monitoring and treatment technologies”.
“In particular, I did not say that untreated or untested CSG water was used directly on watermelon crops in Chinchilla as alleged in the newspaper letter,” he said.
“Water is a precious resource, and the gas industry objective is to either treat it for beneficial use, or store it for future generations,” he said.
“Generally this treatment uses reverse osmosis technologies, which are the same as that used to purify drinking water around the world, including for cities such as London, Singapore and Dubai.
“'Beneficial use' may include making it available for agricultural purposes.
“No CSG water is used for agriculture without some form of treatment, and testing for quality.
“For the Chinchilla weir project, the CSG water quality standard is determined by the Queensland Government Department of Environment and Heritage Protection and the Queensland Water Supply Regulator, taking into consideration environmental requirements and public health,” Mr Wilkinson said.
“The water is carefully treated and held to a high standard.”
In support of Mr Wilkinson, Mr O'Leary said: “I might also add that there is now only one rockmelon grower in the Chinchilla area and they, like the rest of us, are not impacted by the CSG industry and face the same high quality food safety standards, which they greatly exceed.”
Mr O’Leary acknowledged the information contained in his statement was not freely available to Dr Pascoe, Mr Jones and hundreds of other social media users.
“I have been assured by numerous parties that Dr David Pascoe and Alan Jones are honourable men and of a high moral integrity,” he said.
“I can only hope that these gentlemen live up to this praise and their hard work for rural communities will not be undermined by this one article … and that they publicly retract this nonsense before any more false (claims) of the Chinchilla melon industry take place.”
Mr O'Leary also took strong objection to a message posted on Dr David Pascoe’s Facebook page which was almost identical to the one read out by Mr Jones.
According to Mr O'Leary, it further politicised the issue around the Queensland government.
'I stand by everything': Versteden
Contacted by Fairfax Media, Ms Versteden said: “I stand by everything I’ve said in that letter”.
She said the key point was the lack of testing for the CSG discharge water used in agricultural production.
Ms Versteden said she was also a VFF member who is actively opposed to CSG mining and fracking.
The VFF’s executive manager policy and commodities Peter Hunt said that Ms Versteden’s comments in her letter do not represent the views of the VFF.
Mr Hunt said everyone was entitled to their views and opinions but had to get their facts right.
“VFF stands by what Rick Wilkinson said, that he did not say that water from CSG gas wells was being used on melons,” he said.