For the second time, Government buys back radioactive home
THE State Government reached an in-principle agreement to pay a Hunters Hill family $3.4 million to buy their radioactive home, built on the site of a uranium dump, in an out-of-court settlement that raises safety and compensation questions for past and current residents of the street.
The Government has been fighting the purchase for more than six months and has maintained that the land has only low levels of contamination.
But independent tests paid for by Peter and Michelle Vassiliou on their Nelson Parade home contradicted the Government's assurances and found radiation many times the recommended safe levels, including a dangerous hot spot in the ground beneath a bedroom.
NSW Health said yesterday that an in-principle agreement had been reached that would mean buying back the property - but declined to comment on why it was prepared to pay for a house that it has repeatedly said is safe.
The uranium smelter operated on the Hunters Hill peninsula between 1908 and 1915. Radioactive uranium tailings were spread across at least three residential blocks and the waterline along the Parramatta River.
The exact extent of the contamination and the health risk remains unclear. Five people who have lived on or next to the contaminated site since the 1950s are known to have died of cancer, although in the absence of an investigation no direct link can be drawn between the radioactivity and the deaths.
The Vassiliou family bought their "dream home" in 2001 without being informed of the history of the site, after the Health Department wrote to Hunters Hill Council in 1989 saying the land was not dangerous and residents need not be told what had happened there.
Nor was the family warned that the Government had previously bought the land back from private owners because of radiation fears - in 1980, when the then NSW Health Department acquired it from former High Court Justice Mary Gaudron at less than half its market value. Justice Gaudron's daughter, Danielle, has since developed thyroid cancer.
The property was then partially cleaned up and sold to another private owner, who sold it to the Vassilious.
Mr and Ms Vassiliou returned from overseas with their three daughters in December but were unable to move into their house because of the perceived radiation risk. They were unavailable to discuss the settlement yesterday but in an earlier conversation with the Herald they expressed their frustration with what they saw as the Government's deception.
"We would never have bought the house if we had been aware of the risk to the kids," Peter Vassiliou said.
"The Government has a history of not telling people what went on here and they owe us an explanation, as well as other people who have moved in without knowing the risk. Now we have to rely on our family for a place to live."
The agreement being finalised between NSW Health and the Vassiliou family, represented by lawyers Henry Davis York, is not public. However, it is believed to include payment equal to the market value of the waterfront home, plus other expenses including the cost of hiring a private company, Australian Radiation Services, to undertake tests.
"This house was never safe to live in. It's about time the Government protected the public rather than themselves," said NSW Liberal MP Michael Richardson, who has been campaigning for free health and radiation tests along the street.
NSW Health already owns two blocks of land next door to the Vassilious' former home. They are overgrown and fenced off, although radiation warning signs regularly go missing.
Residents the Herald spoke to said they were concerned about the health risks and the stigma attached to the site as long as it remains radioactive.