NSW: NSW Health threatened with lawsuit

AAP General News (Australia)
12-06-1999
NSW: NSW Health threatened with lawsuit

By Brent McKean

SYDNEY, Dec 6 AAP - The New South Wales government is being threatened with a lawsuit
by a water treatment system manufacturer if it does not enforce new wastewater health
standards.

Health Minister Craig Knowles was served a letter of intent to sue by the solicitor
of Fred Seymore, a Hunter Valley based water treatment manufacturer, who says the government
has repeatedly delayed putting in adequate sewage water treatment standards.

The letter states the government has until this Thursday to confirm it will not extend
the deadline for aerated water treatment system (AWTS) accreditation for the fourth time.

Mr Seymore, CEO of water treatment equipment manufacturer CRS Technologies, says NSW
Health delayed AWTS accreditation four times because of lobbying by other water treatment
manufacturers who say they required more time to get their systems up to standard.

The lobby group has asked for an extension until August 2000.

The implementation of standards is in response to the Wallis Lake incident where oysters
were contaminated after effluent entered the lake.

"One of the reasons NSW Health developed new standards almost three years ago was to
make sure this didn't happen again. The Minister has repeatedly put the standards on hold,"

Mr Seymore said.

"All AWTS manufacturers have had ample time to test their systems and apply for accreditation.

They have no grounds for insisting on the latest extension of the accreditation dateline."

Mr Seymore said the minister was compromising public safety by the delay.

He said Mr Knowles has denied the allegations and had put the matter in the hands of
his legal department.

Mr Seymore is also planning to sue the health ministry for the economic loss he has
suffered as a result of the ministers "turnaround".

"We have invested a great deal of time and money (in our system). We are now forced
to compete with systems that are not accredited, and as a result less expensive to make,"

he said.

Currently an AWTS manufacturer can get accreditation based on standards set three years
ago until the new standards are reinforced.

"People won't even know that they are ordering systems that could fail the NSW Health
Standards," he said.

AAP bdm/jo/cjh/de

KEYWORD: SEYMORE

1999 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.