THE NSW government must test land around an Orica chemical plant in Sydney's south to assess whether residents are being affected by mercury contamination, the Greens say.
A mercury remediation expert has raised concerns that Orica has never properly investigated off-site contamination caused by dumped waste and gas emissions from the Port Botany plant.
Andrew Helps, who heads a mercury remediation company and is a member of the UN's global mercury partnership, says tests should be conducted on the air and soil around houses and apartments in a 1.25 km radius.
"Orica has never investigated or quantified the mercury vapour and mercury absorbed on to particles that have travelled offsite into surrounding residential properties," he told Fairfax.
Greens MP Cate Faehrmann said if high levels of mercury contamination were found in the streets around the Port Botany plant it could be much more serious than the leak of toxic hexavalent chromium from the company's Kooragang Island plant, which drifted over a Newcastle suburb, in 2011.
"Mercury has serious human health impacts and families living in the area have every right to be demanding answers," Ms Faehrmann said in a statement on Sunday.
"If Orica has nothing to hide, they will agree to independent testing today."
Orica has told Fairfax it isn't opposed to further testing and would consider this if its stakeholders support the idea.
Last January and in September 2011 the company reported higher than permitted levels of mercury vapour emissions from Port Botany.
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