Indigenous Australian traditional owners have filed a $1.5 billion lawsuit against the Western Australian government over the site of the country’s worst mesothelioma disaster. Toxic asbestos waste at Wittenoom — an area to which the group has native title rights—has killed an estimated 4,000 people and left the region described as “the largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere.” The group is demanding the removal of over 3 million tons of asbestos.
Mesothelioma Crisis Devastates Banjima Traditional Owners
This week, the Banjima Native Title Aboriginal Corporation (BNTAC) initiated legal proceedings in federal court, asking that mesothelioma concerns and harms be addressed through the removal of asbestos waste, the remediation of polluted waterways, and compensation for harm caused by blue asbestos mines that operated from 1943 to 1966. The group argues that toxic contamination has prevented the Banjima people from exercising their native title rights on traditional lands.
“They’ve disconnected us from that place of Country that we can’t visit anymore,” said Johnnell Parker, a Banjima traditional owner and BNTAC deputy chair. Describing the devastation, he said, “There was not one family who lived in the now-shuttered town of Wittenoom unaffected by mesothelioma. I’ve lost loved ones to this disease through no fault of their own.” He noted that relatives who played in asbestos tailings as children “live with this fear now of getting mesothelioma,” and said that the intergenerational trauma has affected Banjima families for decades. A 2016 study found Indigenous Western Australians have the world’s highest mesothelioma mortality rate, with most cases linked to asbestos mining and contamination in the town.
Mesothelioma Cleanup Demands Target Three Abandoned Mines
The goal of BNTAC’s lawsuit is safe access to the site, without fears of the mesothelioma risk. It seeks court orders requiring Western Australia to seal three abandoned blue asbestos mines, clear three tailings dumps, and remove asbestos from the closed Wittenoom racecourse and Wittenoom Gorge airport. The claim argues that despite a 1994 government committee recommending the state “accept responsibility to remove and/or stabilize asbestos tailings,” it “has taken no steps, and has decided to take no steps, to remove, contain or otherwise remediate” blue asbestos at Wittenoom.”
Blue asbestos is considered the asbestos form most likely to cause mesothelioma, and its fibers never break down in the environment. Representing BNTAC, attorney Peter Gordon, recalled landing at Wittenoom airfield in 1987 and “stepping onto blue asbestos fiber, which had been laid there as part of the tailings. It’s still there—it’s never been cleaned up…. The assault and the degradation here is cultural, it’s health and safety, and it’s environmental.” He says that, though Western Australia passed 2022 legislation closing Wittenoom township, “they didn’t remove a single shovel load of blue asbestos waste,” and estimates that the $1.5 billion needed to remove the toxic material, an amount he says pales against the $70 billion in mining royalties that the government earned from the Pilbara region since 2016.
If you or someone you love has been exposed to asbestos and diagnosed with mesothelioma or another related disease, you have a unique understanding of the concerns being voiced by the Banjima people. For information and access to resources, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net at 1-800-692-8608.
