Dugongs, palm cockatoos or cuttlefish – which is Australia's most underrated animal?
After 15 days of voting, we've narrowed down the top 10 Australian animals you may never have heard of.
Could it be the great desert skink? The short-finned eel? Or the gorgeous palm cockatoo?
Join us as we count down to the ultimate underdog.
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ABC News
11 hours ago
- ABC News
Contaminated foam returns to central-west NSW river, more potent than ever
Fresh mounds of contaminated foam have been discovered on a central-west NSW river, with laboratory tests showing it contains the highest amount of the forever chemical PFOS yet. The foam's reappearance on the Belubula River near Blayney comes a year after a group of concerned landholders first called in the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) over foam blanketing the river they rely on for irrigation. Appearing in similar locations to last year, tests show the new foam banks contain 540,000 nanograms per litre of PFOS — 67,500 times the latest recommended drinking water guidelines. PFOS is among the thousands of poly and perfluroalkyl chemicals collectively known as PFAS, and has a wide range of industrial uses. The foam was tested at a Sydney lab after scientist Ian Wright collected a sample to help the community gather data. Cattle farmer Frances Retallack, who made last year's foam discovery, also advised the EPA of the most recent pollution event. "After last year's events, we've monitored [the river] closely," Ms Rettalack said. Ms Retallack recorded video of carp in the Belubula River gulping mouthfuls of the foam. "If you look closely, it's full of dead bugs," she said. A spokesperson for the EPA confirmed it had been made aware of the foam's reappearance. "We have contacted the community to seek more information about this latest report of foam … and will work with water scientists on any further investigations," a spokesperson said. The agency said it had conducted an "extensive surface water monitoring program in the Belubula River" since the initial discovery of foam in May 2024. "We measure pollutants across a range of conditions and seasons to capture any variability in results," a spokesperson said in a statement. Part of the regulatory response also imposed new licence conditions relating to PFAS monitoring upon nearby gold mine Cadia Valley Operations, landscape supplier Australian Native Landscapes and Blayney council landfill whose operations are part of the Belubula catchment. The watchdog said its own test results indicated the foam wasn't wholly PFAS and that it was likely "coming from some other source containing a mixture of surfactants". Impacted landholders have pushed back on the EPA's findings to date, saying its testing program wasn't "robust science" and have alleged information was "left out". "The reports made no attempt to look at the toxicity of the foam, its locations on the river, the volume of [river] flow or the toxic fish [we found]," Ms Retallack said. In a letter to the community, the regulator rejected those allegations. An Australian-first scientific paper on the subject established how the 2024 foam was created. Written by Ian Wright, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney, alongside Helen Nice and Amy- Marie Gilpin, the study used data collected while assisting affected communities along the Belubula River with research support. The paper established background levels of PFOS in the Belubula River were enough to create significant amounts of foam, once water was aerated in colder temperatures. The foam "hyper-concentrated" the amount of PFOS in the river, with one sample showing levels 18,750 times that of the river water. "It's a steep river so there's lots of turbulence, lots of rapids and very small waterfalls," Dr Wright said. His research was also able to establish the Belubula foam was gathering heavy metals at "hazardous concentrations". "It was often a really strange combination of metals, including cadmium and mercury, copper and lead," Dr Wright said. Dr Wright said the process occurring in the Belubula River was something scientists called "foam fractionation". "As bubbles rise through a liquid, some dissolved metals, PFOS, other substances in the water actually stick to the bubbles." Newcastle University's professor Ravi Naidu established the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment, known as crcCARE. He described Dr Wright's findings as "important and novel". He suggested the paper would have benefited from a clearer breakdown as to how the foam was processed for analysis given its delicate form, but that further investigation would be beneficial. "Future studies should include the assessment of likely real exposures: platypus, livestock or humans, together with PFAS fingerprinting," Professor Naidu said. This year, the National Health and Medical Research Council released revised drinking water guidelines for the four types of PFAS most commonly found in the Australian population and environment — PFOS, PFOA, PFBS and PFHxS. The new guidelines for PFOS, which appears to be the main PFAS pollutant in the Belubula, were slashed from 70 nanograms to just 8. Dr Wright said PFOS levels in the Belubula River water creating the foam averaged around 20 nanograms per litre — more than double the revised drinking water limit. There are no guidelines for livestock or irrigation, however PFOS levels in the Belubula exceed the EPA's ecological threshold by 86 times. "The Belubula River is an endangered ecological community," Dr Wright said. "These concentrations just in the river are bad." So far, the EPA has resisted seeing the foam as an indicator of river health or a risk to human health. "Foams in water can collect and concentrate chemicals from the surrounding environment to much higher levels," a spokesperson said. "Higher levels of a chemical contaminant in a foam compared to the level in the surrounding water does not necessarily result in additional risk to human health, if contact is avoided." But Dr Wright describes the foam as being "concentrated patches of pollution", which he says raises serious questions about exposure pathways. "There is nothing stopping livestock wading out or [people] pumping it from the river for irrigation for watering livestock. "I think there should be targeted warnings issued for all users of the waterway in the area. The Belubula's foam problem is now on the radar of those further down the river. Winemaker Sam Statham heads up the Belubula River Users Group, representing landholders between Mandurama and the town of Canowindra. He says irrigators downstream of the foam banks were starting to take an interest. "I raised it at the AGM last week and we agreed the issue should be taken to Lachlan Valley Water," Mr Statham said. Mr Statham will host a community event in September, which he hopes will raise awareness of the issue among the downstream community and give people the opportunity to share knowledge. "Someone might get some reassurance from [meeting up]. Someone else might realise there's a problem. "I'm definitely concerned — I don't want PFAS in my wine."
ABC News
14 hours ago
- ABC News
Gary Shteyngart, Jennifer Mills and Rhett Davis ask what's next
Russian born US writer Gary Shteyngart imagines a future America with strong parallels to Russia in Vera, or Faith, Adelaide based author Jennifer Mills' latest novel Salvage rockets into space after ecological collapse, and Geelong author Rhett Davis on Aborescence about people who want to become trees. Gary Shteyngart is the Russian-born, American-based author of novels including Absurdistan, Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends. His latest book Vera, or Faith, is about a precocious child living in near future America, where cars have attitude and equality is under threat. Gary talks about the worrying parallels between the USA and Russia and the precarious state of immigrants in the country. Jennifer Mills (Dyschronia and The Airways) is one of the most exciting experimental writers in Australia. Her latest novel, Salvage, is a propulsive novel about sisterhood, space and what happens after ecological collapse. She also talks about wanting her books to be of use to readers. And staying with the environmental theme, Geelong based author Rhett Davis's second book Arborescence continues his fascination with trees that featured in his debut, Hovering. Arborescence is about a movement of people who want to grow roots and become trees (and they do, in their billions)! It's also about the absurdity of modern-day life.
ABC News
a day ago
- ABC News
The financial and psychological benefits of off-grid living inspires new generation
Tucked away in southern Tasmanian bushland, Eily Stevenson and Jon Oliver are embarking on an off-grid journey. The couple, originally from Sydney, moved to Tasmania for the weather and the lifestyle. "We knew we wanted to have a family and the idea of raising a young family off-grid in nature was really attractive to us," Ms Stevenson said. They purchased their bush block a few years ago, which already had the dwelling on it. Now, they are beginning to transition the property off-grid, which means being disconnected from the main electricity grid. Off-grid can also mean disconnected from other public utilities, such as water and sewerage. Their first major task will be switching the home to solar, for which they have budgeted about $25,000 to include up to 24 panels and a few batteries. "Five years ago, probably would have been upwards of $30,000, any longer probably up towards … $40,000, and the technology was nowhere near as good either, so definitely it's become more affordable to move off-grid." They have already spent $45,000 on their driveway and access. They expect to spend $18,000 on improving the septic system, $3,000 on adding two additional water tanks, and $25,000 on upgrades to the house. Phillipa Watson is a research fellow at the Australian National University and has been studying the social change in energy uptake across Australia for two decades. Although there is no national database on the number of people living off-grid, Dr Watson said there had "certainly" been increased activity by power companies over the past decade to create more off-grid systems for their customers. She said that shift was primarily thanks to solar power systems becoming more affordable. "The old school off-gridders needed to have a lot of technical knowledge and were getting involved either because they had to, or they really, really wanted to," Dr Watson said. "Then we had this newer kind of household that had to consider the new connection costs which could go into the tens of thousands in those edge-of-grid or remote areas … which then became comparable with putting in an off-grid system." Dr Watson said with the increased uptake, technical support had become more readily available. "We saw in those households they didn't need to be technically able about their off-grid system because the installers were becoming more sophisticated and were able to offer them a long-term support program." Mr Oliver said their property was already connected to the electricity grid. Council regulations can also pose a challenge. "Contact your local council if you've got your eye on a property to make sure that you can do everything, that it's permitted," Ms Stevenson said. Dr Watson said resourcefulness was a huge motivator. "Especially in Tasmania, we see a really strong resourcefulness streak … people who are just really, really proud of being efficient," she said. Ms Stevenson said the "psychological benefits of knowing that you are living off the land and producing a lot of your own resources is really attractive".
