The state government earlier this month revealed it had identified two plots of Adelaide Airport land as its preferred location to build a new police horse barracks, overruling SA Police’s controversial first preference for an 8ha plot of city park land.

The new options are a parcel of land opposite the Harbour Town shopping centre and a disused equestrian centre on the southern side of the airport.

No decision has been made on which site will be the final location, with Premier Peter Malinauskas saying the outcome would be subject to state government “due diligence” and a detailed design phase.

Land opposite Harbour Town, owned by Adelaide Airport, has been identified for a potential police horse barracks. Photo: Matt Turner/InDaily

Among the considerations will be the presence of per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) around Adelaide Airport.

PFAS was used in firefighting foam by fire services around the airport from the early 1970s until they were discontinued in 2010.

One of the so-called “forever chemicals”, PFAS accumulates in the body and does not naturally degrade. They have been linked to cancers, birth defects and diseases and were the subject of a recent $132m class action settlement from the Commonwealth.

During a parliamentary committee hearing on Monday, SA Best MLC Frank Pangallo asked SA Police whether PFAS contamination will form part of the feasibility investigations into the two Adelaide Airport sites identified for the police horses.

SA Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Noel Bamford replied: “Yes, it is. It’s not just the horses I’m worried about, it’s my staff, and so, yes, PFAS will be part of the due diligence that we are doing on those sites.”

Bamford said he didn’t know how much the investigation would cost but it would be carried out by the Department of Infrastructure, which will do PFAS testing on the sites.

Pangallo then asked whether a large amount of PFAS contamination would “rule out the airport as a site”, to which Bamford replied: “Yes, potentially it could.”

In 2018, Adelaide Airport said PFAS had been detected in “low levels” in groundwater on the western boundary of Adelaide Airport.

A study from engineering firm GHD, which ran from November 2018 and March 2019, took soil, surface water and shallow groundwater samples from five wells on land adjacent to the airport’s western boundary.

Two out of the five wells had PFAS concentrations “just above” the National Environmental Management Plan’s human health guidance values for PFAS contamination, according to Adelaide Airport’s summary of the report.

If the airport is deemed an unviable option for the police horses, the state government has a backup site in Gepps Cross near the State Sports Park. Malinauskas said earlier this month the state government “don’t anticipate” using it but “prudence demands that we have alternative options”.

The new police horse barracks will be supplemented by a CBD “staging area”, located on Wright Street behind the SA Supreme Court building, which can host up to 12 horses.

The horses will be driven from the airport barracks to the staging area for CBD operations. Bamford said this could take “anything from 20 minutes to 50 minutes”.

The proposed police horse “staging post” site at the corner of Wright St and King William Street. Photo: Matt Turner/InDaily

Asked whether the airport barracks option was “significantly further (from the CBD) than what was originally in mind”, Bamford said: “Yes, absolutely.”

“I met with the staff at Mounted (Operations Unit) about two weeks ago and spoke to them at length about the changes in direction as far as the Airport sites, and the Gepps Cross site, and we had no major concerns raised by them,” Bamford said.

“The proposal to have a staging point in the city means that we will have almost as good operational capability as we do from Thebarton barracks.”

Asked if there was any risk the new airport site could “increase the time it takes for mounted police units to respond to incidents”, Bamford said: “Yes it will.”

“There is a possibility that if we were responding to something in an emergency that was not pre-planned, then it will take longer to get here than it does to ride from the Thebarton barracks,” he said.

“Part of our criteria for selecting a site will be to ensure that there’s not just one access point in and out of that facility or in and out of the city.

“For instance, with the Airport sites you can go in multiple directions and if one road was blocked you could get in from another road.

“Keep in mind that horses are not a lights and sirens emergency response; police will respond in police cars to do that. They will come along to assist in any sort of management of large crowds or civil disobedience.”

Asked whether the CBD staging area was a permanent solution for the police horses, Bamford said: “If this all goes ahead – because it is currently in feasibility study stage – we would be looking for that to be an ongoing, permanent location.”