Home›Questions on Notice›QoN 1105

❓ A parliamentary question seeks information on historical PCB leaks at the Huntly mine, including locations, monitoring, and remediation efforts. The Minister's response indicates PCBs are no longer in use and no leaks have been reported, but the site is classified as potentially contaminated and requires investigation.

AnsweredQoN 1105Legislative Council

Asked

11 December 2025

Member

Hon Jess Beckerling

Portfolio

the Environment

QuestionView source ↗

I refer to table C-1 on page 106 of the Huntly and Willowdale Mine Water Resource Management Plan, which states that there may be historical leaks of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at transformers and sub-stations in the Huntly mine, and I ask: (a) can the Minister please provide the exact GPS location of each of these historical sites; (b) what testing, monitoring and reporting is ongoing at each of these sites to mitigate the risk of PCB leaks; (c) have any PCB leaks have been identified or reported for any of these sites; (d) if yes to (c), can the Minister please provide the following: (i) date of discovery/report; (ii) the exact location of report; and (iii) what action to remediate the leak was taken, and when; and (e) can the Minister please provide any reports generated via testing and monitoring actions?

AnswerView source ↗

Answered

24 February 2026

Responded by

Minister for the Environment

Response time

5 days

(a) The locations of the historical transformers are described within Table Cl, so they can be located on the maps included in the report. Exact GPS locations are not available.
(b) PCBs are no longer in use at the Huntley mine site, mitigating ongoing risk of leaks. The Huntley mine site is currently classified as possibly contaminated - investigation req ired under the Contaminated Sites Act 2003, requiring Alcoa to investigate any potential historical contamination.
(c) No.
(d) - (e) Not applicable.

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