The humble hemp seed could hold the key to solving the Williamtown contamination crisis.
Researchers at the University of Newcastle say they've discovered a breakthrough which could resolve the ongoing situation at Williamtown using hemp seeds to remove the firefighting chemicals responsible for the contamination from the water.
Dr Brett Turner from the University's Centre Of Excellence for Geotechnical Science and Engineering made the discovery after being intrigued by news stories about residents of Williamtown having their blood tested for PFOS and PFOA contaminants.
"There's at least one protein in the human blood responsible for transporting around the body and this particular protein seems to have fairly strong analogies with the protein in hemp so we acquired some to test on the ground water from Williamtown and we were absolutely astounded at the results," said Dr Brett.
The Centre has received a grant of $600,000 from the state government to investigate the ability to treat large volumes of contaminated water. The university has also contributed an extra $220,000.
"So the money is to drive the research forward a little bit more and hopefully get to a point where we can have a small scale filter system, that we can go out hopefully to Lake Cochran at Williamtown and do some larger volumetric testing," said Dr Brett.
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Dr Turner says although the research is in its early stages, he is very confident this could be the start of something big.
"We're very confident and very hopeful. The initial results have removed the PFOA levels to below the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines in one part and we've had very very good removal, over 99.2 per cent removal of the PFOS as well,"
"The initial results were absolutely astounding and we hope to move forward so we can do something productive and useful for the people n the red zone and other people that are affected around the world."
