Since 2018, residents in the remote community of Laramba, 200 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, have been loathe to drink water from the taps in their homes.
Key points:
- Laramba’s residents have lost an appeal at NTCAT meaning landlords aren’t required to provide safe drinking water
- Residents are considering appealing the decision in the NT Supreme Court
- A tender has been awarded to a company to clean Laramba’s water
The community’s 300 residents fork out for bottled water instead because they know Laramba’s tap water contains triple the recommended levels of uranium.
While the community has known their local bore water contained uranium as early as 2008, it was only in 2018, when NT Power and Water studied the drinking water closely, that the scale of the problem became apparent.
Despite this revelation, the taps in Laramba continue to dispense unsafe drinking water because this is entirely legal in the Territory.
And Laramba isn’t alone.
In its latest water quality report, NT Power and Water identified nine remote communities with tap water that had levels of uranium, manganese and fluoride that surpassed guidelines.
Why is it OK to dispense unsafe drinking water?
In a nutshell, there is no legal requirement for landlords in the Northern Territory to provide safe drinking water to their tenants.
Unlike in all other Australian jurisdictions, the Territory does not have safe water laws.
These safe water laws mean that there are enforceable minimum standards for the water that people drink and clean in every day.
The community’s lawyer, Dan Kelly from Australian Lawyers for Remote Aboriginal Rights, called it a “legal black hole.”
“No government department wants to or has to take responsibility or accept liability for the water that they’re delivering to remote Aboriginal people,” he said.
He said, at the moment, no-one was liable for any negative health impacts that could come from drinking unsafe drinking water and that there was no recourse for affected residents.
Lawyer Dan Kelly says water safety in the Northern Territory falls into a “legal black hole.”(ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Are Laramba’s residents taking action?
In 2018, Laramba’s residents took their landlords, the NT Department of Housing, to court to argue that they had a right to safe drinking water — they lost that first case in Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT).
The tribunal member presiding over the case. Mark O’Reilly, said the uranium in the water was not the responsibility of the landlord.
“In my view, the landlord’s obligation for habitability is limited to the premises themselves,” the decision read.
A recent review of this decision by NTCAT has upheld the original finding.
The appeal agreed that landlords in the NT did not have an obligation to provide safe drinking water to their tenants.
What’s next for residents?
Mr Kelly said the community was “reassessing its options” but had further legal avenues to explore.
“The next step from the community in the legal proceedings would be an appeal to the NT Supreme Court,” he said.
This pathway follows the legal steps taken by residents in Santa Teresa, another remote community in Central Australia, that recently won the right to be leased habitable housing in the NT Supreme court.
“We’re talking to the community about their options and what they want to do,” Mr Kelly said.
Mr Kelly said if they won their case it would mean remote tenants would be able to seek recourse for any health impacts caused by unsafe drinking water and would have a right to demand their water quality be improved if it was below par.
A 2020 Power and Water report found Laramba’s water was contaminated with more than three times the concentration limit of uranium recommended in the Australian drinking water guidelines.(ABC News: Isaac Nowroozi)
Is bottled water the only solution for Laramba?
Even if they don’t have a legal right to safe drinking water, there is hope on the horizon for Laramba’s residents.
The NT government recently awarded a $5 million tender to a company called Clean TeQ Water to remove pollutants from the community’s water supply.
In a statement, Clean TeQ said it would “design, manufacture, and deliver the plant using [the company’s] ion exchange technology.”
In ion exchange, small beads — called resins — are made of hydrocarbons that work like magnets for the targeted chemical, which is uranium in Laramba’s case.
Uranium will stick to the beads and be removed as the water passes through the plant.
Mr Kelly said this was a “great outcome for Laramnba”, but the new plant did not address the legal issue that created the problem in the first place.
“It doesn’t answer the question for other communities in the Northern Territory, about who’s responsible for their water,” he said.
The company said the plant is due to be operational by December 16, 2022.
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