The public watchdog will consider scrutinising ACT authorities over failures surrounding the pollution of groundwater in Hume, as pressure mounts on the government for answers and legislative change.
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ACT Auditor-General Maxine Cooper confirmed she would look at conducting a performance audit of issues arising from the case of Koppers Wood Products, which contaminated local groundwater with 2430 times the safe limit of hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen known for its association with the Erin Brockovich case.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher acknowledged on Tuesday there were ''legitimate issues'' that needed to be looked at, and said she was not ruling out changes to legislation.
Ms Gallagher said she expected an ongoing review of the ACT's environmental laws to recommend stronger powers for Environment Protection Authority officers.
''There are some legitimate issues that have been raised that need to be tested with the EPA and I will be looking closely at this issue to see if any further work needs to be done,'' Ms Gallagher said in her role as acting Environment Minister.
The carcinogenic chemical was thought to be isolated to groundwater beneath the former Koppers site and Ms Gallagher assured the public there was no danger either on, or away from, the 20-hectare block.
The EPA had come under fire for not obtaining its own independent tests of the groundwater since 2007 to assure the public the carcinogens had not moved off-site, and instead relied on Koppers, which left the site in 2005, and its consultants to notify it of potential problems.
ACT Liberal senator Zed Seselja expressed ''serious concerns'' about the case, and urged Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt to demand answers from the ACT government.
Mr Seselja spoke with Mr Hunt on Tuesday morning about the pollution of the Koppers site, and later wrote to him expressing fears of potential contamination of the territory's waterways.
''The story raises serious concerns about the lack of action by the ACT government to deal with the issue and the potential damage this may have caused to our waterways,'' Mr Seselja wrote.
The pollution exposed a series of failures in ensuring the multinational corporation's compliance with its obligations, as set out in its 1989 Crown lease, its 1998 environmental agreement and its 2002 environmental authorisation.
Koppers was required to submit regular laboratory results that showed monitoring for the potential contamination of its groundwater, first to the Commonwealth, and then to the ACT between 1998 and 2005,
the year it closed the plant. Just two groundwater test results were received in the three years between mid-2002 and 2005, despite Koppers being legally required to send them quarterly, while six came in between 1998 and 2002, when it was told to send them every four months.
The EPA failed to review Koppers' legally binding environmental authorisation annually, as it was required to do between mid-2002 and 2005.
When it first conducted the review, just before Koppers closed, it found ''no records of quarterly [groundwater] monitoring being undertaken'' and ''three soil locations and six water locations that contained concentrations of some contaminants above the relevant guidelines''.
Dr Cooper's involvement had been called for by the ACT Greens and the opposition environment spokeswoman Nicole Lawder, who had sought a briefing from the government.
Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury also called for law reform, urging the introduction of stronger protections for groundwater. ''This example certainly highlights that we need to amend the legislation to include the provisions to protect groundwater,'' he said.
He said he would write to Environment Minister Simon Corbell to seek assurances that the problems in the Koppers case were not occurring elsewhere.
He said the case underlined the need to ensure the EPA was adequately resourced to do the job the public expected.
The company that bought the land, Canberra Hire, was expected to begin assessing and remediating the groundwater, after it lost a long-running court battle with Koppers over responsibility for the clean-up.
Dr Cooper could conduct only seven performance audits each year and had competing priorities for her office's time and resources.
The Audit Office would consider the Koppers case for possible inclusion in this year's audit program.
It had the power to take environmental issues into account if they were ''relative to the operations being reviewed or examined''.
