Antinuclear

Greens will fight to save Pilbara environment from uranium mining

it is a pristine natural area and it has environmentally sensitive wetlands in the vicinity,” Senator Ludlam said.

The risk of ground water and wetland contamination made it one of the worst possible sites for a uranium mine, he said.

Greens urge govt to block Pilbara uranium, Sydney Morning Herald, Andrea Hayward March 29, 2011 The Greens have vowed to fight a Canadian company’s bid to mine uranium in Western Australia but hope the federal government will reject the proposal on environmental grounds.

Canadian uranium mining company Cameco is seeking federal environmental approval to mine its Kintyre uranium deposit near Telfer in WA’s Pilbara.

If given approval, it plans to truck as much as 3600 tonnes of uranium oxide annually from Kintyre, near Telfer, in the Pilbara, to a planned hub near Kalgoorlie.

From there it would be shipped by rail to Adelaide or Darwin for export.

The deposit, near the Rudall River, alongside Karlamilyi National Park in WA’s north was originally part of the park before it was excised in 1994, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said.

“So as you can imagine it is a pristine natural area and it has environmentally sensitive wetlands in the vicinity,” Senator Ludlam said.

The risk of ground water and wetland contamination made it one of the worst possible sites for a uranium mine, he said.

Senator Ludlam said the planned trucking route from Telfer, through Newman, Meekatharra, Mount Magnet, Leonora, and possibly Kalgoorlie if the hub was not completed by 2013, was also of great concern.

It would mean uranium oxide was transported down unsealed gravel roads between the remote Goldfields towns of Wiluna and Meekatharra.

“(It’s) particularly provocative now that we’ve got a Canadian/Japanese joint venture proposing to mine uranium out of what used to be a national park while we’ve still got a nuclear plant smouldering in Japan.”

There were thousands of truck accidents every year in WA, Senator Ludlam said.

The WA government was so uninterested in environmental and public health it had removed legislative protection that had once existed, he claimed.

Greens urge govt to block Pilbara uranium

March 31, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Western Australia