Alcoa ordered to fix toxic PFAS risk at South West mine site

Alcoa has been given a month to reduce the risk of water contaminated with “forever chemical” PFAS overflowing at its Willowdale mine inland of Bunbury in Western Australia and risking the environment and human health.

The WA environment regulator has given the US company a long list of actions after an inspection in March found water contaminated with nearly twice the level of PFAS considered safe for areas of high conservation levels, such as the jarrah forest Alcoa mines for bauxite.

The regulator condemned the pipeline Alcoa built to move PFAS across a water supply dam as easily damaged and not built to requirements.Credit: Anon.

A Department of Water and Environmental Regulation notice issued on May 5 said Alcoa employees had told it the PFAS-contaminated wastewater had to be disposed of urgently before heavy winter rain could cause the areas where it was stored to overflow.

Last year, Alcoa attempted to address this risk from past use of firefighting foam that contained PFAS by using a pipeline to carry the contaminated water over the Samson Dam public drinking water dam.

However, it did not seek prior permission from DWER to build or operate the pipeline, which in March the regulator found had inadequate design and construction, and was located where it could be easily damaged and had a real risk of leaking.

An Alcoa spokeswoman said when it flushed the line as directed by DWER testing did not detect any PFAS.

WA Forest Alliance campaign director Jess Beckerling said Alcoa’s mismanagement of PFAS had been shocking.

“It has exposed how little regard Alcoa seems to have for our health and the protection of our forests, rivers and wildlife,” she said.

“I hope this action heralds a new and far more robust approach to holding Alcoa to account.”

On Friday, DWER directed Alcoa to complete a range of actions within 30 days to avoid a likely contamination of the environment after winter rain.

“PFAS is highly soluble and highly mobile and has the potential to cause significant and long-term impacts to the environment including aquatic ecosystems and potentially human health,” the notice said.

Alcoa must move all contaminated water stored in unlined dams and sumps into lined storage areas and ensure the water level in these areas is no more than 50 to 70 per cent of the maximum depth to reduce the risk of overflow after heavy rainfall.

Any contaminated water that cannot be stored within these limits must be moved in sealed tankers by a licensed carrier to a waste disposal facility.

The Alcoa spokeswoman said it would comply with the direction.

A DWER spokesman said the actions it ordered Alcoa to do were an interim solution while longer-term options to manage PFAS-contaminated wastewater at its Willowdale mine site were considered. He declined to comment further as the matter was under investigation.

The state government also has concerns that Alcoa’s Huntly mine to the north could render undrinkable water from Serpentine Dam which supplies almost one-fifth of Perth’s water.

Increasing amounts of cleared areas close to the dam, especially on steep slopes, could cause substantial runoff of sediment into the dam after heavy rain, rendering the water treatment facilities useless and possibly contaminating the dam with oil and PFAS.

Improved treatment facilities could cost up to $2.6 billion and, while they were built, 250,000 customers that could only be supplied from dams may have to boil their drinking water or use bottled water.

The Alcoa spokeswoman said in 60 years of operation in WA the company had never negatively impacted public drinking water.

Alcoa Australia gets a new boss

Alcoa in Australia will again have a permanent leader from June when Matt Reed, operations executive at Oz Minerals becomes vice president operations – Australia and president Alcoa Australia. Reed had been with the Adelaide-based miner that has now taken over by BHP for less than three years.

The Australian operation of bauxite mining and alumina refining in WA and the Portland aluminium smelter in Victoria has been managed by normally US-based vice president of transformation Rob Bear after the departure of Michael Gollschewski in December 2022.

Reed said he was pleased to be appointed when Alcoa Australia was celebrating its 60th year in Australia.

“The period ahead represents an opportunity to provide continuity by maintaining the best features of the company’s history to date while helping to set new paths for the future,” he said.

Reed joins a time when Alcoa in WA faces unprecedented regulatory hurdles and challenges to its social license, including state government concerns that its mining threatens Perth’s water supply, a poor record of rehabilitating the jarrah forests it mines, the possibility that the WA Environmental Protection Authority may intervene in its annual mining approvals process and the EPA reviewing a major mining expansion for the first time.

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