The $150m solution to Broken Hill’s pollution crisis

An independent panel of experts has warned that thousands of children would continue to be exposed to harmful levels of lead unless the state’s taxpayers stump up $150 million to permanently solve Broken Hill’s pollution problem.

The NSW government has spent more than $20 million over the past decade removing lead from homes, monitoring air pollution and screening the blood of hundreds of children exposed to high levels of lead contamination in the mining town.

But progress has slowed in recent years, and internal government documents released under freedom of information laws this month reveal doubts within government’s own health and environment agencies that existing programs could protect Broken Hill’s children from harmful lead exposure.

A review by three health experts from outside NSW in 2021 found the Broken Hill environmental lead program was providing a crucial service to the community, and recommended it secure funding for the next 10 years.

In response to the review, the NSW Environment Protection Agency (EPA) proposed three future funding options.

The first was to continue the existing program at a cost of $1.8 million a year. The agency said this would ensure child blood lead levels did not worsen but were unlikely to improve, and the funding would need to continue indefinitely.

Boosting funding to $5.7 million a year – the EPA’s recommended option – would increase the number of homes funded for lead removal from 20 to 180 a year indefinitely. This would enable more proactive and targeted remediation, including for up to 90 homes housing women who were pregnant.

The “best practice” option proposed involved spending $11.5 million a year for 13 years ($149.5 million) to fully remediate public spaces and 500 homes a year until the environmental risks are removed. This would ensure “all children will live in a lead-safe house in the city of Broken Hill”, the agency wrote.

The documents reveal that as recently as September last year the Broken Hill lead response group was lobbying treasury for increased funding to cover existing blood screening and remediation programs, and expand services to offer in-home support for families affected by lead.

A 2024 survey of lead exposure risks by engineering firm Ramboll found significant data gaps for air, soil and water pollution and recommended an expanded dust-monitoring program to pinpoint the sources of lead contamination, including “potential for mine sites to be a continuing source”.

Cate Faehrmann, the NSW Greens upper house MP and mining spokeswoman who requested the documents, said the report was further evidence current mining continues to drive elevated blood lead levels in Broken Hill.

“The government is well aware that silver, lead and zinc mining in Broken Hill is causing lead poisoning in the community, particularly in First Nations children,” Faehrmann said.

Premier Chris Minns, whose department has coordinated the Broken Hill lead response since 2023, did not respond to a request for comment. He told the health budget estimates committee last month that funding for lead programs in Broken Hill “remains consistent with the previous year’s budget”.

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