Aboriginal Group Takes Asbestos Contamination Fight to the UN

Fencing and warning tape seen around playground equipment at a park where asbestos has been found at Hosken Reserve in Coburg North, Melbourne, Australia, on April 5, 2024. AAP Image/Joel Carrett

The tiny, isolated town of Wittenoom in Western Australia has come before the U.N. Human Rights Council, as Aboriginal traditional owners step up their fight to have the state government clear asbestos contamination from the site.

At the foot of a deep gorge 15 hours’ drive northeast of Perth, the Pilbara town is blanketed in the deadliest type of asbestos, crocidolite.

Although asbestos mining finished there 60 years ago, asbestos fibres have spread beyond the 46,000-hectare Wittenoom Asbestos Management Area (WAMA), with Banjima elder Tim Parker claiming in 2008 that “it is right across the Hammersley Ranges.”

That has earned it the title of the largest contaminated area in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s also been called “the world’s most dangerous town” and “Australia’s Chernobyl.”

Melita Markey, CEO of the Asbestos Diseases Society, said air monitoring showed air around Wittenoom was “extraordinarily dangerous to human health” and joined the call for the state to take responsibility.

“Mining companies going into beautiful areas around the world, leaving their mining waste behind for the indigenous people to deal with,” she said. “And we’ve got the worst case in the world where mining companies went in and left a massive mess.”

In 2021, the Banjima people, who traditionally lived in the area, took a 200-signature petition to the state parliament, asking the government to identify who was responsible, and how much it would cost to clean up.

40-Metre High Piles of Tailings

It’s estimated that 3 million tonnes of carcinogenic mining waste is piled at least 40 metres high into the nearby gorges.

Since 1978, consecutive state governments have commissioned inquiries and reports and formed committees to examine the problem. But the land has remained polluted, with an estimated cost of at least $150 million to clean it up.

In 2022 the WA Parliament did, however, pass the Wittenoom Closure Bill, giving officials the power to forcibly buy and demolish the town’s 14 remaining buildings, expel the few remaining residents, and stop the 60 tourists a week that risked their lives to visit the “ghost town.”

Local Ashburton Shire Council CEO Kenn Donohoe wrote to the state parliament warning that Wittenoom asbestos spread in heavy rain onto a public road—used by tourists, miners and pastoralists.

“The asbestos fibres are not being contained at Wittenoom and are spreading,” the letter read.

He also wrote to the fire service about a risk to firefighters sent into the area, and asbestos spreading across district roads, including one of “regional importance.”

That deadly mineral was extracted from the area from the 1930s to 1966.

The mining operation was originally run by Hancock Prospecting—now owned by Gina Reinhart—then sold to Colonial Sugar Refinery Company (CSR), which went on to export 161,000 tonnes of raw asbestos and then sold it back to Lang Hancock.

Leases that covered the tailings dumped in the gorges were confiscated by the government in 1979.

Hancock Prospecting has not responded to questions about cleaning up the asbestos contamination at Wittenoom.

More than 2,000 people are estimated to have died from working at the mine, with more added to the total every year.

‘Constant State of Fear’: Local Aboriginal People

Speaking to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Sept 19, Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation (BNTAC) director Johnnell Parker said the asbestos had left her family in a constant state of fear.

“When family find out they have the sickness from Wittenoom they say to me ‘I got a little bit of Wittenoom in me,’” she said. “We always worry who is the next elder who won’t be sitting around our table.”

During the meeting, U.N. special rapporteur Marcos Orellana submitted a report that claimed the WA government had engineering reports that confirmed that if the piles of tailings were not stabilised, they would spread out for hundreds of years.

There are already concerns that the tailings have seeped into pools in Millstream-Chichester National Park, which is a popular swimming spot and the source of Karratha’s drinking water.

It’s even possible mining could resume near the area under the Iron Ore (Wittenoom) Agreement Act between the state and Hancock Prospecting.

In 2008, the company said it intended to mine an area called Drillers Ridge—a contaminated area situated between Wittenoom and Karijini National Park—and manage asbestos risk.

In 2022, a spokesperson said the company had no immediate plans to mine Drillers Ridge, but did not completely rule it out.

The area is home to several sacred Aboriginal sites, and the Banjima people want to see the agreement ended and contracts to clean up Wittenoom given to Indigenous businesses with a connection to the area.