The state’s water regulator has told Alcoa to clean out a pipeline running near a drinking water dam in Waroona after finding the pipe likely to contain contaminated water and pose a pollution threat.
The state’s water regulator has told Alcoa to clean out a pipeline running near a drinking water dam in Waroona after finding the pipe likely to contain contaminated water and pose a pollution threat.
An inspector issued the notice on behalf of the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation on Thursday saying he reasonably suspected that “a condition of pollution is likely to arise”.
Alcoa has been given two days to purge the pipeline of any contaminated water and been told not to operate the pipeline other than for that purpose.
The notice follows media reports from Nine Entertainment outlet WA Today that the water supply in the Serpentine Dam was threatened by Alcoa’s nearby mining operations, with state government ministers having allegedly raised issues with the company late last year.
The 10-kilometre pipeline is used to transport wastewater from the Huntly Bauxite mine in North Dandalup to a treatment facility and runs adjacent to the Samson Brook Dam.
In the notice issued on Thursday, the department said preliminary investigations indicated the pipeline was likely to contain contaminated wastewater and had been constructed in contravention of DWER’S Public Drinking Water Supply Protection Policy.
In addition, inspectors determined that the pipeline’s design and construction did not meet requirements to prevent releasing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to soil, groundwater or surface waters.
PFAS are groups of chemicals used in the likes of stain and water protection products, cosmetics and paper coatings for their heat-resistant properties.
The federal government says understanding about the human health effects of long-term PFAS exposure is still developing but that there is global concern about the persistence and mobility of the chemicals in the environment.
The department says PFAS are highly soluble and highly mobile and have the potential to cause impacts to aquatic ecosystems and human health.
“I consider that a release of PFAS contaminated water through pipeline joints or loss of pipeline integrity to be a real and not remote possibility and that such an event will cause emissions which will cause a direct or indirect alteration of the environment to its detriment or degradation or to the degradation of an environmental value,” the notice read.
