WA Premier Roger Cook forced to defend drinking water protections

The taxpayer-owned utility responsible for drinking water in WA raised red flags about Alcoa clearing native forest on the doorstep of dams used to supply thousands of households.

Jarrah forests cleared for bauxite mining near Perth, WA.

West Australian Premier Roger Cook has defended his Labor government’s oversight of bauxite mining, after revelations the state-owned utility responsible for drinking water raised red flags about the clearing of native forest on the doorstep of dams used to supply thousands of households.

The Water Corporation also asked to withdraw from a committee set up by the government to approve the clearing of native forest by Alcoa, citing the utility’s “reputational risk of being party to approving mining activity which ultimately impacts its ­operations”.

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws reveal the Water Corporation’s alarm over the potential for heavy rain to cause run-off from the Alcoa operations that would shut down filtration systems and lead to contamination of the drinking water supply.

Alcoa said on Thursday that its multi-decade operations in WA had never had an adverse effect on drinking water and confirmed it had given WA a $100m guarantee that drinking water supplies would not be impaired.

Water Corporation chief executive Pat Donavan warned his board about the potential impact on Serpentine Pipehead Dam less than a year ago and well after the government unveiled what it described as more stringent controls on the Alcoa ­operations.

His report to the board flagged the potential for the number of affected customers to grow exponentially as contaminated water spread, with a thousand customers at risk of drinking contaminated water in the first one to two hours and 100,000 at risk after six hours.

The report from May last year said depending on the size of any contamination event, the Health Department might need to advise West Australians to boil drinking water, and that the corporation might need to supply bottled water to more than 100,000 customers.

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook. Picture: Paul Garvey

The Water Corporation board was warned mining approvals granted via the Alcoa Transitional Approval Framework (ATAF) unveiled by Mr Cook in December 2023 “increased drinking water quality risk”.

Under some of the changes that applied to Alcoa, it had to pull back from any mining within a kilometre of the reservoir but was allowed to mine other areas that were previously off limits.

Pittsburgh-headquartered Alcoa is sweating on two mining approval applications before WA’s environmental watchdog, which can only make recommendations to government.

“Alcoa continues to comply with the strict conditions put in place by the state government as part of the ATAF, including additional management measures for environmental factors such as water,” a company spokesman said.

“We have also elected to defer mining activity in the Reservoir Protection Zone as part of the revised proposal for future mining activities to further evidence our commitment to continuing to operate responsibly.”

Alcoa employs more than 4000 people at its bauxite mines and alumina refineries in WA, where it has operated for decades under one of the state agreements that provides unrivalled certainty to major investments in the resources-rich state.

Mr Cook said on Thursday that the terms of a state agreement were influencing the government’s dealings with Alcoa.

“We certainly are conscious of our legal obligations under the Alcoa state agreement,” he said.

Speaking just nine days out from a state election, Mr Cook said the quality of drinking water in the Perth area was his “highest priority”.

“That’s one of the reasons why we’ve done significant amount of work with Alcoa and with our stakeholders to make sure that we put Alcoa under a more stringent and more contemporary environmentally regulatory re­gime,” he said in response to issues first reported by the Boiling Cold news website. “We’ll continue to stay on their back.”

 Recently South32, WA’s other big bauxite miner and alumina refinery operator, gained approval from federal environmental authorities for a 15-year expansion of mining in early in February, avoiding having to shut down operations in a move that would have cost 1700 jobs.

The WA government signed off on the expansion in December after relaxing carbon emissions limits and bushland preservation targets that South32 claimed were far too onerous.

Originally published as WA Premier Roger Cook forced to defend drinking water protections