Antinuclear

Radioactivity from uranium to go way beyond Roxby Downs?

Lifeinthemixtalk.com  By Lynn Stanfield 30 Sept 09 “……..It would not be out of the question to consider this dusty little equation :If a violent dust-storm were to arise in the Woomera – Roxby Downs – Olympic Dam region, then the prevailing ‘Westerly Winds’ which stream across our country at around the 30 – 32 deg (s) latitudes are bound to contain a heap of Uranium 234 particulate matter!.

Such matter would be bound to contaminate all points in the described path of the wind, scattering exponentially as other weather systems influenced it, travelling in an ever-broadening swathe across the land, till passing over the East coast and on out across the Pacific Ocean, spreading mutation, death and destruction as it goes, reaching from the Galapagos to Tierra del Fuego and beyond..

Now, isn’t this something to consider?All living things on land and in the ocean, contaminated.All fruit and vegetables and grazing matter, contaminated.All drinking water, contaminated.
Some Facts about Uranium Mining :

.You might like to think about these :

1. Tailings Waste
Even the highest grade deposits contain less than 1% uranium, so huge amounts of ore have to be processed to get useful quantities of the uranium. The leftover ‘waste’ rock is called tailings. In the course of processing, it is crushed to a fine powder, which is almost as radioactive as the uranium itself. It is hazardous for more than 250,000 years, which might as well be forever. These tailings need to be isolated from the environment to prevent a cancer epidemic, and there are already more than 50 million tonnes of uranium tailings on Australian soil.

.2. Radon Gas
As uranium emits radiation; it transforms itself into a new element, which in turn emits radiation and decays, and so on through 14 steps until it eventually – after hundreds of thousands of years – becomes a stable form of non-radioactive lead. One of the elements along the way is Radon, a radioactive gas which can travel for hundreds of kilometres before decaying. Mine workers and others who breathe this gas, risk developing lung cancer and other forms of lung disease.

.3. Environmental Contamination
Uranium mining contaminates the air, water and earth with radioactive chemicals and heavy metals which can never be properly cleaned up. In addition to the radiation hazard, mining is also associated with poisonous processing chemicals, heavy metals and the use of huge quantities of water. In the short term, uranium mine sites wreck the ecology of the local region; in the long term, they pose a risk to a much broader area.

4. Health risks
The health risks of uranium mining are by now quite well known, although still aggressively disputed by the mining industry. Collectively, uranium miners suffer the highest radiation doses of all workers in the nuclear fuel chain (apart from accident cleanup crews). The main problems are inhalation of dust and radon gas, which leave alpha radiation emitters lodged in the body where they can do most harm. As the contamination from the mines spread away from the mine site, local people are also exposed to contamination. While uranium mining is most commonly associated with cancer, low level radiation is also implicated in birth defects, high infant mortality and chronic lung, eye, skin and reproductive illnesses.

.5. Nuclear Waste
There is a massive amount of high level nuclear waste still being spewed out by reactors around the world and there is nowhere safe to put it. Pangea Resources actually has a plan to bring a lot of this waste into Australia. Nuclear power stations create this waste as part of normal operations; but there are also risks of reactor accidents; the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 killed many people, spread nuclear pollution right around the planet and forced the permanent evacuation of the surrounding area………….

Some Startling Developments :

.News to hand:  the South Australian State parliament and the Commonwealth  of Australia parliament have given approval for a Chinese mining company, to buy out the existing mining companies around Woomera / Roxby/ Olympic Dam and other Uranium deposit sites in South Australia.

.Further, approval has been given for this Chinese company to undertake the biggest Uranium mining development / expansion in history.

An Environmental Impact Statement has been published, outlining the proposed development plans.

.These plans describe the establishment of: two new large city complexes to cater for the number of workers involved (wow!); a complete International Airport (more wow!); a road and rail link to the coast with a complete Deep-Sea Loading Port Facility (golly!)

.The EIS describes, almost excitedly, how the new mine will be: “….the biggest man-made hole on Earth… an enormous amount of over-burden will be removed, enough to build a new mountain range……..”.

Uranium hunt could have sour fallout

September 30, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, South Australia, uranium | antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, nuclear wastes, Olympic Dam, radioactive, South Australia, uranium, wastes