Keiron Stewart lived an idyllic lifestyle as he grew up on the NSW South Coast - swimming in creeks and beaches, climbing trees and eating mulberries from a large bush along the track to the beach.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
But that idyllic childhood threatens to turn deadly as Mr Stewart now has benign tumours all over his body, which he believes is a result of Wreck Bay's PFAS contamination from neighbouring Defence sites.
He told a Senate Select Committee hearing in Nowra - about 40 minutes north of Wreck Bay - on PFAS (per and polyfluoroalkyl substances) about how he lived in fear of the tumours turning malignant.
PFAS are sometimes referred to as "forever chemicals" because they don't easily break down and can accumulate toxins in plants and animals. They were in firefighting foam used for defence training in the area from the 1970s, before being phased out in 2004.
Indigenous people affected by the contamination on traditional cultural lands had a court win in 2023, through a $22 million class action settlement with the federal government. But it did not include compensation for personal injuries from use of PFAS, which is known to be a hazardous substance.
Mr Stewart is no stranger to cancer, as he lost his mother to a rare cancer in her eye when he was just seven.
She was 37 when it was diagnosed and given just two weeks to live, but did not survive that long.
Her death was just one of the huge number of cancer cases tormenting the tiny Indigenous community, which has the dubious honour of often being named the most dangerous place in Australia to live because of its high cancer risk.
Mr Stewart said it was not just his mother who had been lost to cancer.
There was an aunt who "raised me like her own", who went through a series of health problems including diabetes, kidney failure requiring dialysis, a heart attack that ultimately required a triple bypass, and breast cancer that required a double mastectomy before cancer finally ended her life.
"I lost my mother, I lost my other mother, I lost all my aunties - all of them to cancer," Mr Stewart said.
"I lost my first cousin a couple of months ago. She had breast cancer. She was younger than me."
He said all Wreck Bay families were impacted in similar ways.
"There have been more than 20 deaths in the past year alone, from the age of 30," he said.
"It's ravaged our community, it's out of control."
Mr Stewart moved to Sydney several years ago, and said returning to Wreck Bay had him worrying about the health of his children aged nine, six and three.
He said he also struggled to teach them his culture.
"We can't learn much about much about about our culture, we can't teach our babies that culture because all of it's contaminated," he said.
"We can't teach them about the fruits they can eat from the bushes. We can't teach them about the medical uses of ribgrass, because it's all poison now."
The committee, chaired by Senator Lidia Thorpe and comprising senators Perrin Davey, Varun Ghosh and Peter Whish-Wilson, visited the Wreck Bay community on Monday, January 20.
During a hearing in Nowra they were joined remotely by senators Slade Brockman and Louise Pratt.
They heard a range of stories of cancer impacting the community, and cultural loss.
Sonny Simms said PFAS was a "death sentence" that had caused deformities in babies.
Darryn Sturgeon said she spent years slashing land for the Defence Department, and while he was OK, two of his daughters had suffered from brain tumours.
One woman, whose mother battled breast cancer, spoke of black discharge from her breasts months after wading through some of the water that was later found to be contaminated with PFAS.
"The specialist said he had never seen anything like it," she said.
Others spoke of the PFAS spreading through the environment - in the pippies, abalone, seagrass and even fish caught in Summercloud Bay.
Some questioned the government's "acceptable" levels of PFAS in the water, saying other countries were completely banning the use of PFAS, and saying it was dangerous at all levels.
Yet in Australia the government that was responsible for the contamination was deciding what levels were safe.
"How does a perpetrator say what's acceptable?" one person asked.
Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community Council CEO Tamara Mitchell called for funding for regular blood tests.
"I don't think this is something Wreck Bay should have to fund ourselves since we're not the ones who poisoned the land," she said.
"We're told that our water is clean, the ground in Wreck Bay is clean, and that only certain parts of Wreck Bay are contaminated.
"If this is true, then the PFAS levels of community members should be the same as the PFAS levels in people outside the village, but we have no testing done to let us know this is the case."
Dr David Goldberg was a GP at Wreck Bay from 2000 to 2008, and said while testing was still being conducted, PFAS was "almost certainly a carcinogen", but definitely suppressed the immune system, making people more susceptible to developing cancer and other illnesses.
"It became obvious to me several years ago that Wreck Bay is a cancer cluster," he said, with PFAS potentially causing damage at levels undetectable by current technology.
Dr Goldberg said he would "move the village" if funds were available, restoring lifestyle in a new location within the Booderee National Park away from the contaminated land and water.
He said the community also needed a full range of medical screening services, because he feared remediation was not possible with PFAS contamination.
READ MORE:
Shine Lawyers' Craig Allsopp, who worked on the 2023 civil action case, said there was anecdotal evidence that defence staff made "snow" fields out of the firefighting foam during Christmas celebrations.
Without realising the toxicity of the foam, workers also sprayed the foam to farewell colleagues.
"They just had no idea," Mr Allsopp told the inquiry sitting in Nowra.
"I don't think there's any doubt that this land is contaminated."
The inquiry is examining the social, economic and environmental effects of PFAS, including sources of exposure and the adequacy of regulations.
PFAS chemicals are known for their heat, water and stain resistance and have been commercially produced for decades for use in firefighting foam, aviation, carpets, cookware, fabric and cosmetics.
PFAS was once used in firefighting and the chemicals have been detected near defence bases and airports around Australia.
The defence department has remediated 28 sites since 2015, including two near Wreck Bay, where 21 million litres of water has been treated to limit further contamination.
"We remove PFAS from the water, which is the way we will limit its capacity to continue moving off base and through both groundwater and surface water into communities," acting associate secretary Celia Perkins said.
- with AAP
