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  Channel NewsAsia 24 Jan 06
Fishing banned in polluted Sydney Harbour

SYDNEY : Chemical pollution has caused commercial fishing to be banned in Sydney's famous harbour, despite its apparent beauty.

Bream and prawns in the harbour were found to carry dangerously high levels of dioxins, which can cause cancers and birth defects, Australia's New South Wales state government said.

The pollution was a hangover from past industrial waste, said Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald, adding that the three-month ban was a precautionary measure.

Prawn fishing in the harbour had already been banned last month, but Monday's move prohibited all commercial fishing and even recreational anglers were warned to release any fish they catch rather than take them home to eat.

Dioxins are a group of chemicals produced as an unwanted by-product of some industrial processes. Macdonald said the levels of dioxin in the harbour were above World Health Organisation recommendations, which had been brought down dramatically in recent years.

"We are dealing here with a legacy issue, with an industrial hangover," said New South Wales Environment Minister Bob Debus. "We're dealing with pollution that accumulated at various times during the last century."

The environmental group Greenpeace says some of the pollution originated in Homebush Bay on the Parramatta River some 12 kilometres from the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge.

"The area has been the site of some of Australia's most polluting industries since the earliest days of Sydney's industrial development," Greenpeace said. "The dioxins found at Homebush Bay are associated with the past production of organochlorine herbicides by the multinational chemical giant Union Carbide," the group alleged after it carried out an investigation in 1997.

"From 1957 to 1976 Union Carbide made chlorinated herbicides including 2,4,5,-T a component of the infamous Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War."

Homebush Bay later became the site of the Olympic Village for the Summer Games in Sydney in 2000.

The National Toxics Network, an Australian environmental watchdog, welcomed the ban on fishing, but said it should have been put in place five years ago. - AFP/de
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