Cost to clean up Wittenoom revealed

Wittenoom’s asbestos tailings would cost $200 million to clean up, according to a report the state government has buried for more than 10 years which also details a preferred method of remediation.

The GHD report prepared in 2013 for the Department of Lands (now the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage) costed the remediation of deadly asbestos tailing piles in Wittenoom and Yampire gorges in the Pilbara at $153 million.

Adjusting for inflation, that cost in 2023 would have come in at $198 million.

Business News obtained correspondence about the GHD report which revealed the Wittenoom Steering Committee decided encapsulation would be the best way to remediate Wittenoom to prevent tailings leaching out into the surrounding landscape.

That measure would see excavations dug into gorge walls where the tailings would be dumped then capped with the excavated material.

“In 2015 geotechnical investigations were undertaken at two potential encapsulation areas to assess the feasibility of encapsulation,” the report said.

“Following the outcomes of the geotechnical investigation, GHD advised the (Department of Lands) that the encapsulation strategy was feasible.”

The Colonial Mine in Yampire Gorge would be the first priority for such treatment.

Under the plan laid out in the report the state government was given two options to progress the work.

The first would see the government control the entire process at a cost of $145 million, which was estimated to take 10 years.

A second strategy to contract out management of the job was estimated to be able to wrap up two years quicker but cost $7 million more at $153 million, or about $200 million adjusting for inflation today.

GHD recommended at that time the state government commence baseline monitoring of groundwater as soon as practical and that it retain control of the project at least until preliminary designs were finalised.

The asbestos piles, which are visible from space, were largely dumped in the gorges by CSR while the industrials firm headed up asbestos mining around the condemned former town in the 1950s and 60s.

CSR took over operations from WA mining pioneers Lang Hancock and Peter Wright, who then bought back the shuttered operation in 1966 in a failed bid to build a major industrial hub in the area.

The microscopic blue asbestos fibres present at Wittenoom are so deadly that inhaling just one fibre can kill a person.

Part of mesothelioma’s danger is in its delayed onset – it can take up to 20 years for symptoms to present but, once they do, victims usually die within two years.

Asbestos exposure is believed to have killed more than 2,000 people who lived or worked in the Wittenoom mines, and the death toll is still rising.

Revered Banjima elder Maitland Parker died this year after an unusually long eight-year battle with the disease.

Former Greens MP and Wittenoom resident Robin Chapple is still alive, having been diagnosed with asbestosis in 2020.

Former Labor MP Ernie Bridge died of mesothelioma in 2013.

He was suing the state government, CSR Limited, the Shire of Ashburton, Hancock Prospecting, and Wright Prospecting, claiming he was exposed to the dust undertaking his ministerial responsibilities.

At the time of Mr Bridge’s death, Labor MP Simon Millman – formerly a lawyer – said he was seeing up to 120 cases relating to asbestos diseases every year.

The state government in 2022 kicked out the final residents of Wittenoom so it could permanently wipe the former town from the map.

A DPLH spokesperson said it was unlikely to be technically feasible to remediate the entirety of Wittenoom's 46,000-hecatre contamination zone. the largest in the southern hemisphere.

"This will be considered by the Wittenoom Steering Committee (which includes the Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation)," they said.

"Works to demolish above-ground structures within the Wittenoom asbestos-contaminated area concluded, all roads into the former town site and nearby gorge are permanently closed and it is not safe to visit.

"The Wittenoom Steering Committee continues to meet to provide advice to the State Government on what actions could be considered to maintain public safety in the area and to reduce ongoing impact on Country.

"We can’t be any clearer, Wittenoom is the largest contaminated area in the southern hemisphere, to anyone thinking about visiting the area, forget it – it is not safe to visit Wittenoom at any time, due to the asbestos contamination and you may even risk death."

The spokesperson did not answer why the report had not be released yet, when it would be publicised, whether encapsulation was still the government's preferred remediation method, or if any subsequent reports had been established to update the clean-up cost.