Australian Pesticides Map

Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing
How deceit and collusion are destroying our great beaches

by Sharon Beder
first published by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989

3. Toxic Fish

“…Very few surveys of the effect of industrial waste discharge on marine life have been carried out in Sydney and those that have have tended to concentrate on the existence and numbers of species. Recently an ex-Water Board employee, Ron Snape, a marine biologist, told the press that while he was conducting a survey of marine life of Sydney’s outfalls for the Board in 1973, he carried out tests for concentrations of heavy metals and organochlorines although this as not part of his brief. He claims that be found concentrations of mercury, zinc, cadmium and dieldrin in the samples caught near the Malabar outfall and the blackfish had six times the concentrations of mercury almost maximum safety levels for seafood. He says the Water Board did not want to know and he was forced to resign over it. He was coaxed back into their employment and completed the report of his 1973 survey in 1975 but claims that the report was heavily rewritten and distorted…

https://www.herinst.org/sbeder/Books/toxicfish/chapter3/ch3b.html

1973: Malabar (NSW) Pesticides and Heavy Metals detected in fish. Pesticide: Dieldrin

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Toxic Fish and Sewer Surfing
How deceit and collusion are destroying our great beaches

by Sharon Beder
first published by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989

3. Toxic Fish

“…Very few surveys of the effect of industrial waste discharge on marine life have been carried out in Sydney and those that have have tended to concentrate on the existence and numbers of species. Recently an ex-Water Board employee, Ron Snape, a marine biologist, told the press that while he was conducting a survey of marine life of Sydney’s outfalls for the Board in 1973, he carried out tests for concentrations of heavy metals and organochlorines although this as not part of his brief. He claims that be found concentrations of mercury, zinc, cadmium and dieldrin in the samples caught near the Malabar outfall and the blackfish had six times the concentrations of mercury almost maximum safety levels for seafood. He says the Water Board did not want to know and he was forced to resign over it. He was coaxed back into their employment and completed the report of his 1973 survey in 1975 but claims that the report was heavily rewritten and distorted…

https://www.herinst.org/sbeder/Books/toxicfish/chapter3/ch3b.html