ABSTRACT
A total of 144 known groundwater contamination incidents are documented for Australia. A wide range of contaminant sources is involved, including industrial effluent, sewage and landfill leachate. Many cases are of local significance but several important regional aquifers are affected.These regional aquifers include Quaternary sand aquifers of the Perth Basin, in Western Australia; a widespread Tertiary limestone in South Australia and Victoria; Quaternary volcanic rocks and Tertiary sand aquifers near Melbourne, Victoria; and fractured Silurian sedimentary rocks at Canberra. These are all shallow unconfined aquifers that underlie regions of intensive urban, industrial or agricultural development. Remedial measures, including groundwater recovery and treatment, have been successful in a small number of cases. A range of State (as opposed to federal) government legislation is applicable to the control and management of point source contamination, but controls are unevenly implemented. Legislation applicable to diffuse contamination is obscure or non-existent. Surveillance and documentation of the reported incidents is incomplete and more than half of the known incidents are not currently monitored. Remediation of many of the known incidents has not yet been undertaken.
The need for groundwater protection has been recognised in Australia recently, and national guidelines are being developed to assist the formulation of regional policies and controls.
