Western Australia’s resources industry is scrambling to come up...

Western Australia’s resources industry is scrambling to come up with strategies to deal with contamination issues around toxic chemicals used in firefighting foams. These have tainted soil and groundwater under at least one BHP iron ore mine.The state’s peak resources industry lobby group has scheduled a series of meetings with its members starting on Thursday as it seeks to determine the best response to issues involving per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS.Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA (CMEWA) plans to meet the state’s biggest miners, and oil and gas companies in small groups in a series of meetings scheduled over the next fortnight to discuss PFAS and the ramifications for the industry.The consultation will help determine whether the problem requires an industry-wide response or should be handled on a company-by-company basis.It is understood big mines that have been around for a long time and oil and gas operations that have involved extensive firefighting activity and training exercises face the most pressing contamination issues.CMEWA, which has worked closely with the WA government to safeguard the industry from COVID-19 over the past 14 months, considers PFAS contamination as an emerging challenge.The Australian Financial Review revealed this week that BHP was facing soil and groundwater contamination issues in WA after detecting low levels of the same dangerous chemicals that have been found at Australian defence force sites and on Victoria’s troubled West Gate tunnel project.BHP confirmed that PFAS had been found in isolated areas at its Newman operations but said studies to date had not indicated any health risk.Following Defence leadThe miner and other resources companies are now following the lead of Australia’s defence forces and phasing out the use of firefighting foams containing PFAS.WA’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) has declared BHP’s ageing Mount Whaleback mine a contaminated site requiring remediation based on the presence of PFAS, asbestos and a volume of pure diesel sitting on the surface of the water table under a power station that was decommissioned more than 20 years ago.In the case of the diesel, more than 21,000 litres have so far been recovered from the top of the water table and re-used at the mine site.The department has given BHP until this month to submit an interim site management plan for PFAS in soil and groundwater across the site, which sits in the Whaleback Creek, Opthalmia Dam and Fortescue River catchment and within a priority-one public drinking water supply area.It has said remediation work is required to mitigate the potential risk to human health and the environment.DWER declined to reveal whether other resources companies had reported PFAS contamination of groundwater.CMEWA initiated its meetings with the companies after Japan’s Inpex Corporation found itself in hot water with environmental authorities over the handling of PFAS in the Northern Territory.Federal authorities fined the LNG producer $12,500 in 2019 after finding it had tried to boil away PFAS-contaminated liquids left behind by firefighting tests at its $US45 billion ($59 billion) Ichthys project in Darwin. Inpex Australia is a member of CMEWA.