By ANEEKA SIMONIS
A YOUNG Pakenham family fear for their long-term health after discovering their brand new home was built on a toxic waste dump.
More than a year after Justin and Rebeca James moved into their new home, they were told their backyard was littered with broken up asbestos sheeting.
The pair told current affairs TV program The Project their 18-month-old daughter Emily can’t play outside like normal kids and their concerns about her existing exposure to the toxic waste.
“As parent, you just want the best for your kids, but she can’t even play out in her own backyard with her own pets. It’s sad and heartbreaking,” James said.
“We are worried about our health. We have been digging in the dirt ourselves (before we found out), so we don’t know what’s going to happen,” the alarmed mother said.
Red flags were raised more than a year after the family moved into the home when a tradesman came to landscape their backyard.
The tradie alerted them to the dangerous sheets splayed across the undeveloped land and suggested they were removed and tested.
Toxic analysis found the backyard was contaminated with two of the most dangerous asbestos fibres known to cause an incurable form of lung cancer which has killed 4700 Australians in the past three decades.
The TV program reported the developers strongly denying having any knowledge about the material and offering to clear their property.
But the family’s solicitor John Barrett said they did not take the company up on their “goodwill gesture” as it was coupled with a deed of release forfeiting their rights to take future legal action.
The parents are trying to identify whether other homes in the new subdivision area are also contaminated with the deadly asbestos sheeting.
The couple brought the block in 2008 and builders finished the house by May 2010.
