Image via the Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia
The town of Wittenoom, initially degazetted by the Western Australian Government in 2007, will be dismantled and demolished following the final resident leaving the area.
The town supported the Wittenoom asbestos mine, and the land and surrounding area are now considered the largest contaminated sites in the southern hemisphere. The exposure of residents and workers to blue asbestos is linked to an estimated 1,200 deaths among workers and residents.
Many former residents who lived in the town during its busiest and most productive era remember their time there fondly. ABC News spoke to a number of residents, including Olga, who arrived in Wittenoom in 1950, and who described it as “filled with magnificent gorges and great scenery,” she said. “We had a lovely, lovely little place.”
She said that there was no discussion of the asbestos risks, which was operational from the 1930s to 1966. “We were never told; we would not have gone there if that would have been the case. They should have never, never ever have built a town there.”
According to residents, the roads in the town were paved with asbestos tailings and workers were routinely seen coming home to their families covered in dust from the mine. Children were often seen playing in the asbestos tailings, with one photo from the archives showing them competing in a sack race on an asbestos track.
Valma Mlodawski, another resident interviewed by the ABC who lived in Wittenoom, remembers it fondly, but her memories are tainted by the deaths of friends and family from mesothelioma.
“Asbestos affected everybody from the youngest child to the oldest person.”
She recalls family groups and a strong community: “We made our own fun, mostly parties, mostly at private houses until the power went off at midnight, and then you went home. There were a lot of families there.”
“It was a beautiful place of scenery, and everything was lovely. It was good things as well as bad with great people.”
The legacy of the mines at Wittenoom will continue to cast a shadow over fond memories of former residents: there are three million tonnes of asbestos tailings at the site, which has affected more than 45,000 hectares of previously pristine pastoral land.
The Western Australian government has not committed to the site’s clean-up, and Lands Minister John Carey has downplayed the likelihood of total remediation. He has previously stated that it is unlikely the area will ever be safe to visit.