Staff at an Aboriginal community health facility near Cairns have been offered bottled water and precautionary blood tests after tap water at the service was found to contain elevated levels of copper.
Testing of the Yarrabah Health Facility's mains water in March detected the presence of high levels of copper.
It's understood the issue is isolated to the clinic and has not affected the quality of the drinking water in the wider community.
Tropical Public Health Services director Richard Gair said investigations into the facility's plumbing system were ongoing.
Meanwhile, bottled water was being provided to staff and visitors.
"The health service has engaged an expert hydraulic engineering firm to investigate the plumbing system within the facility and make recommendations," Dr Gair said in a statement.
He said senior officers from the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service, including experts in environmental health and medical doctors, had met twice with staff at the Yarrabah Health Service in May to answer questions and share with them plans to address the water quality issues.
"Any staff who work within the health facility, including Gurriny Yealamucka and Queensland ambulance staff, have been offered a precautionary blood test for elevated copper levels," Dr Gair said.
"The testing is free and voluntary. The drinking water elsewhere in Yarrabah community complies with the Australian drinking water guidelines."
Queensland Health has not released details about the amount of copper detected in the water.
Town water aquifer safe
Yarrabah Mayor Ross Andrews said the town's water was pumped from an aquifer to a local reservoir for treatment.
He said he had no reason to believe the town water contained copper contaminants.
"We're continuing to do that good work in partnership with the authorities to ensure that people have safe and reliable water supply to community," he said.
Low risk of harm
Organic chemist and honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, Ian Rae, said the upper limit for copper in water was 2mg/L.
"The short-term risks are a gastric upset because the digestive system gets out of whack," Professor Rae said.
"The worst that's going to happen is a long-term damage to a liver. That's a very nasty situation, but it's very rare. You need quite a bit of copper over a long period to do that."
A statement from Queensland Health determined that the long-term health risk to the public was low.
"Available evidence does not indicate increased health risk at the levels currently detected unless the person has a rare condition such as Wilson's disease," the statement read.
