North Pine fluoride incident
The incident
Following an incident regarding fluoride dosing at the North Pine Water Treatment Plant in April 2009, the Premier announced the need for an immediate investigation.
The investigations
A number of investigations were undertaken, including:
- an Independent Investigation (PDF, 1.0M)* led by Mark Pascoe (Adjunct Professor and Chief Executive, International WaterCentre), which included an investigation into the cause of the incident, recommendations on any remedial actions required to ensure safe fluoridation operations in the future, and provision of independent advice to the Chief Executives of the Department of Environment and Resource Management and Queensland Health regarding possible breaches of legislation
- regulator investigations by:
- the Office of the Water Supply Regulator, to determine the sequence of events and identify potential legislative breaches by drinking water service providers Seqwater (PDF, 297K)* and LinkWater (PDF, 261K)* under the Water Supply (Safety and Reliability) Act 2008
- Queensland Health (PDF, 51K)* , to determine the sequence of events and identify potential legislative breaches by Seqwater of the Public Health Act 2005 and the Water Fluoridation Act 2008.
Recommendations and compliance actions
The independent report and individual regulator reports have now been released by government.
The independent report found operational issues including equipment failure, reporting breaches and operational errors contributed to the fluoride incident. Following investigations, the Office of the Water Supply Regulator has issued a formal warning to Seqwater and a letter to LinkWater to highlight the seriousness of non-compliance with the notice.
For a summary of the independent investigator’s findings and recommendations, along with the compliance actions required by the Office of the Water Supply Regulator, see the Summary of recommendations and compliance actions (PDF, 218K)* table .
* Requires Acrobat Reader
Last updated: 26 June 2009