Rob Bilott was a lawyer representing big chemical companies in the United States. On a trip home to the small town he grew up in, he got pressured by family to look into why a local farmer's cows were dying.
That eventually led him to swap sides and fight the chemical giants. In 2017, Bilott won a US$671 million settlement on behalf of more than 3500 plaintiffs whose water and land had been contaminated by the "forever" chemical PFAS. They had contracted diseases, among them kidney and testicular cancer, from chemicals that manufacturer DuPont allegedly knew may have been dangerous for decades.
A critically acclaimed Hollywood movie about the case called Dark Waters is released in Australia this month. One of the things Bilott has highlighted is how both government and regulators in the US failed to protect communities against PFAS contamination.
"If we can't get where we need to go to protect people through our regulatory channels, through our legislative process, then unfortunately what we have left is our legal process," he told Time magazine recently.
That quote hit close to home this week after the shutting down of a $6.7 billion road tunnelling project in Melbourne because workers came across PFAS contaminated soil. That project wasn't halted because a regulator said it couldn't go ahead. It wasn't halted because of legislation. It was instead two of Australia's biggest construction companies who said they were not prepared to put workers at risk. That decision highlights the utter contempt with which both the state and federal government have treated the families in Williamtown whose homes and properties are also contaminated.
For more than five years, the federal government has said there's not an issue with PFAS contamination still leaking off the Williamtown airbase. Health and environmental bodies in NSW have given residents confusing and conflicting advice.
Our political leaders and health and environmental regulators have utterly failed PFAS-contaminated communities like Williamtown. And as Rob Bilott says when that happens you have just one option.
So on April 1, Williamtown and other communities will have their case heard in the Federal Court - the largest-ever class action against the Australian government, for polluting our land. It's a landmark hearing - the first time a government has been called to account for PFAS contamination globally. It should have never come to this. It's a fight we're determined more than ever to win.
Lindsay Clout is a Williamtown resident and President of the Coalition Against PFAS
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