OPINION:
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
NT Health Minister Natasha Fyles flew into Katherine on August 9 last year to deliver the bad news.
The only way your government can guarantee you won’t be drinking contaminated water is to impose restrictions.
Residents took the odds and evens system stoically, as you would expect from Katherine.
You can bet the water authorities were also betting on our patience.
But there is a limit.
Many people in Katherine have reached that limit, and some have gone way beyond.
Ms Fyles (pictured on that day in Katherine) did not say the restrictions would be semi-permanent although she did announce the impending arrival of the “interim” treatment plant.
On our reading, interim means temporary – and years does not qualify as temporary.
In fact, we have heard precious little from Ms Fyles about Katherine’s struggle with PFAS ever since.
Not because of something the residents have done, but because of the dithering from the people entrusted with their care, like Ms Fyles.
Where is the Health Minister now?
Where is the NT Government now?
Katherine has another build-up season to navigate and another one after that.
At best guess, and it’s only a guess, a permanent fix to our water in the form of a bigger water treatment plant will be in place by the end of 2019.
What have we heard from the government about that?
What have we heard from our community leaders? We just let this whole stinking mess meander along and bank on the continued patience of our townsfolk.
It stinks.
We have heard the current dispute between the Department of Defence and the NT Government is not over who should pay for this upgraded plant, Defence has already agreed to cough up on that.
No, the information we have is that there’s an impasse on who should pay for the new plant’s operating costs into the future.
Please, please tell us that’s not true.
An entire town’s health, the NT’s fourth biggest settlement, being held to ransom by bickering bureaucrats.
Disgrace piled onto disgrace.
Argue over the fine print after it is chugging away delivering safe drinking water to the people of Katherine.
