Antinuclear

REHABILITATION: The only future for Ranger uranium mine

9 April 13,   Kakadu uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia’s (ERA) is expected to announce a financial loss at its Annual General Meeting in Darwin tomorrow.

The AGM comes only months after open cut mining ended at the troubled Ranger site and only a month after the end of plans for uranium mining at the nearby Koongarra region.

“Now is the time to draw a line for uranium mining in Kakadu and to end plans for a new underground mine at Ranger – called the Ranger 3 Deeps project,” said Environment Centre NT spokeswoman Cat Beaton.

“The Ranger and Jabiluka leases need to go the way of Koongarra and the chapter closed on uranium mining in the Kakadu National Park region”.

The federal government has determined that ERA’s proposed 3 Deeps underground uranium mine plan requires a full Environmental Impact Statement and there is much scepticism about whether any underground mine could meet the mine lease closure date of 2021.

“Both the profitability and social license for uranium mining in Kakadu have faded and we are urging ERA to now clean up, rehabilitate and exit the Ranger lease.

There is no economic or environmental rationale for taking the Ranger operation underground and any move to do so will be actively contested,” concluded Ms Beaton.

April 11, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Northern Territory, uranium