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From 2013.igem.org

Project Background

There is evidence of settlement by the Eora people (Indigenous Australians) in Sydney for many thousands of years. Many household English words are inherited from their language, including dingo, wombat, waratah, wallaby, etc. The best explanation for this is that when Captain Cook initially landed on the continent of Australia, way back in 1770 at Botany Bay, the Eora people were first he met. Thus Botany Bay is not only a significant historical landmark, but represents a collision of worlds, languages, cultures, and relationships to the environment.

Today, Botany Bay is part of the modern city of Sydney - it’s a suburb with schools, supermarkets, churches, and so on. It’s also been the site of an Orica (previously ICI Australia) manufacturing plant since the 1940’s. During this period of industrial activity in a period of relatively absent environmental awareness and regulation, there has been extensive chemical pollution of the Orica site, leading to contamination of the groundwater at Botany Bay. In 1998, a plume of DCA (1,2-dichloroethane) was discovered in the groundwater. Since then the contamination has been tracked, treated, modelled, debated, and more. Residents are banned from using the water for drinking, washing, watering the garden - anything.

The pollution at Botany Bay is not only a hassle for local residents or a justification for Orica’s new Groundwater Treatment Plant. It is a symbol of a people out of touch with their environment, who forget their own national story, who solve the problems they cause by looking elsewhere - bringing in water for domestic use and attempting to export chlorinated hydrocarbons overseas.

References:

• http://www.oricabotanytransformation.com/?page=25
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eora
• http://www.water.nsw.gov.au/Water-management/Water-quality/Groundwater/Botany-Sand-Beds-aquifer/Botany-Sands-Aquifer/default.aspx

Questions:

• Is it true that Homebush Bay and Sydney Harbour have similar chlorinated aliphatic contamination? See - http://www.babs.unsw.edu.au/research/bioremediation-contaminated-groundwater

OTHER STUFF - JUST TESTING ATM