Yarloop farmer Tony Ferraro and Mandogalup resident Bob White have one thing in common: they live on the doorstep of vast, industrial wastelands.

The two men are fighting separate battles against alumina giant Alcoa over sprawling residue ponds at the company's Wagerup and Kwinana refineries.

For every tonne of alumina created, there are about two tonnes of waste. About four million tonnes of bauxite residue is deposited at the Kwinana facility alone each year.

Tony Ferraro says dust from Alcoa's waste dump causes dry throats and irritated eyes. ( ABC News: Claire Moodie )

Together the residue storage areas at the two refineries span over 1,000 hectares.

Until recently, locals said the "red mud lakes" had been out of sight, out of mind. Barely visible from ground level, their scale could only be fully understood from the air.

But now the Kwinana facility is under scrutiny, with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) deliberating whether new residential subdivisions should be allowed within 1.5 kilometres of it.

The EPA's decision will affect whether the State Government goes ahead with controversial buffer zone legislation opposed by property developers.

'I'm not bloody happy at all'

Sorry, this video has expired Alcoa's Kwinana waste lakes as seen from the air ( Claire Moodie )

The Kwinana case is being watched by Yarloop locals, including Mr Ferraro, a dairy farmer who has been complaining for years about dust from Alcoa's Wagerup residue area, 130 kilometres south of Perth.

Despite assurances it poses no threat to public health, he claims his family and animals suffer when there is a "big red cloud of dust".

"It's the caustic that concerns us," Mr Ferraro said.

"When the wind blows from there, you get a dry throat, you get red eyes."

Mr Ferraro, whose family was farming the area long before Alcoa arrived in 1984, is part of a local action group appealing against an increase in the refinery's output.

The group is also opposing the removal of a condition on the company's licence that prohibits visible dust from leaving the boundaries of the residue area.

"If the Government has given them the OK, I'm not bloody happy at all," Mr Ferraro said.

"Whoever is OK-ing that, it's unconscionable conduct."

The company was fined in court for breaching the condition in 2006 and 2011.

The Department of Environment Regulation has defended the decision to remove the condition, saying Alcoa was still liable for prosecution under the Environmental Protection Act.

It said the company "undertakes dust control measures" and the removal of the condition "doesn't reduce the level of these controls".

In a statement, Alcoa said it was appropriate to remove the condition on the licence because it has "very little relevance to the management of environmental risk".

'They have to compensate us'

Like Mr Ferraro, Mr White of Mandogalup has also lived through the transformation of his neighbourhood to make way for Alcoa.

The 59-year-old said it was "just bush" before the closest residue storage area was built about 400 metres from his boundary to service the Kwinana refinery.

"My father used to talk about walking through there picking orchids - now it's an industrial wasteland," he said.

"Where will Alcoa be when Western Australians are left with hundreds of hectares of residue that can never be built on?"

He said the State Government's buffer zone legislation favoured Alcoa at the expense of local residents, whose land values would plummet as a result.

"The chance of me selling this and moving, downsizing when I get older, would be very hard," Mr White said.

"They have to compensate us."

Mr White and other Mandogalup residents are angry Alcoa has not fully closed and rehabilitated the residue area nearest to his home, known as "Area F", as it pledged to do in October 2004.

The company said the closure had been delayed by approvals necessary for new residue drying areas.

Report finds no health risks

Alcoa would not be interviewed, but in statement said air quality monitoring over many years at both Wagerup and Kwinana showed no cause for concern.

Some Mandogalup residents have made their views clear on the proposed buffer zone legislation. ( ABC News: Claire Moodie )

The company pointed to a recent paper by its chief medical officer Dr Michael Donoghue that found the risks of chronic health effects and incremental carcinogenic risks were negligible.

At Kwinana, the company said it supported the buffer legislation because it would provide "separation between industry and sensitive land uses" and prevent potential conflicts.

According to air quality monitoring carried out on behalf of developers with land within the proposed buffer, the levels of fine dust particles and heavy metals in the area are within national standards.

But Lee Bell of the National Toxics Network is not convinced.

"The materials that are in the red mud that are harmful include toxic heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and also the radioactive elements uranium and thorium," Mr Bell said.

"If anything, I think the buffer zone should be extended beyond that.

"I think 1.5 kilometres is the bare minimum for this sort of facility."

But Alcoa said Mr Bell's comments were "extremely misleading" and should be considered in the context of a health risk assessment carried out in 2005.

The study found the potential for emissions to cause acute health effects was low, to cause chronic non-carcinogenic health effects was very low and to contribute to cancer was less than one in a million.

Alcoa said it had received only one community complaint about dust from both Wagerup and Kwinana since the beginning of the year.