Antinuclear

Still no radiation registering of Northern Territory’s uranium workers

NT URANIUM WORKERS STILL NOT ON NATIONAL REGISTER, GREENS SAY, Safe To Work, By Cole Latimer  20 October 2011  Uranium miners in the Northern Territory are still not on the National Radiation Dose Register, Greens senator Scott Ludlam says.  It comes five months after Ludlam originally brought the issue to bear in May, with Ludlam today again quizzing representatives from the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency on this issue.

“In July 2010 the register began collecting data on the radiation doses to which workers had been exposed. There are now over 18,000 workers on the database – covering about five years – but there is no information at all on the radiation workers have been exposed to at the Ranger Mine in the Northern Territory. We revealed this in May, and urged the Territory and Federal authorities to address it. ARPANSA told us today that nothing has changed, and to raise the issue with the office of energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson,” Ludlam said in a recent statement.

“We will write to Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson to encourage urgent action to fix this problem.”  The national register was created as a central database to track radiation dose histories of miners….. Under this new development, information on radiation doses will be sent to a central register, where miners can then access their personal records.

“Excluding work in the Northern Territory is a huge crack in the system, and it was revealed five months ago and NT uranium mine workers are still off the radiation dose radar. The system will only have integrity if all radiation doses are included,” Ludlam says…..  http://www.safetowork.com.au/news/nt-uranium-workers-still-not-on-national-register

October 23, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, Northern Territory, uranium