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Media Release

August 26 2003

New UniSA centre leads billion-dollar environmental clean up worldwide

UniSA’s Mawson Lakes campus will be home to a new Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation set to tackle billion dollar land and water contamination problems around the world.

UniSA’s Professor Ravi Naidu has been appointed Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Assessment and Remediation (CERAR), which will draw together expertise from SA and around Australia and use the latest research techniques to develop land and groundwater remediation programs locally and internationally.

The Centre will be launched on Friday August 29 at 10 am by SA Minister Assisting the Minister for Environment and Conservation, Terry Roberts, at UniSA’s Mawson Lakes campus.

The only Centre of its kind in the South East Asian region, Professor Naidu says the team will work on some of the most diverse and complex environmental problems and draw on expertise across Australia through relationships with universities and the CSIRO.

“In Australia the number of registered contaminated sites exceeds 80,000 with an estimated cost of remediation between $5 billion and $8 billion,” Professor Naidu says.

“There are about 30,000 contaminated sites in both NSW and Queensland, 10,000 in Victoria, about 4000 each in WA and SA, 100 in NT, 500 in Tasmania and 500 in ACT. Contaminants include industrial wastes, pesticides, toxic heavy metals, radioactive substances and other pollutants and each situation requires different and often complex remediation strategies.

“When you look at the problem globally, the cost of land and groundwater contamination is more than $750 billion. The economic burden is enormous but the human costs in some countries are generational and immeasurable. In Asia, arsenic poisoning through leaching into groundwater from contaminated soil as well as its transfer into plant foods has affected more than 10,000 people with ongoing health problems including arsenicosis and cancer.”

Prof Naidu says the new Centre will provide opportunities for research, the chance to educate next generation specialists in the field, and an independent forum for dialogue between industry, regulators and the community on the formulation of research programs on contaminated regions, which will achieve outcomes that meet the objectives of the participants.

“In establishing the CERAR we are taking a big picture view,” Professor Naidu said. “We are working to educate future generations of specialists from around the world - we are working with industry and Environmental Protection Authorities to solve contamination problems and importantly to avoid future problems by examining constructive and safe methods of waste disposal or recycling.”

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