Antinuclear

Government team investigating Ranger radioactive spill excludes Aboriginal owners

Ranger clean-up ignores traditional owners 9 News, December 12, 2013   Aboriginal traditional owners have been left off a taskforce convened by the government to investigate a massive leak of uranium and acid at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park.

At 1am on Saturday a leach tank with a capacity of about 1.5 million litres collapsed, spilling out a mixture of uranium, sulphuric acid, and mud at the mine site, which has operated for 30 years inside the boundaries of one of Australia’s largest protected areas.

The federal government suspended operations at the mine and has formed a taskforce with regulators and the mine operators to respond to the incident, but traditional owners have not been invited to participate, says David Vadiveloo, acting CEO of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which advocates on the behalf of the Mirarr people.

He told AAP the lack of an invitation to play a role “goes to the heart of our calls for the desperate need for independent oversight of that mine”.

“The regulatory procedures are just as archaic as the mine,” he said……..

an on-site GAC representative says radiation testing is still being carried out, with a large volume of contaminated material sitting on the ground outside the contaminated area.

Mr Vadiveloo said he was “stunned” to see ERA reassuring the community before testing was complete.

“Through good fortune – clearly not good planning – it hasn’t rained here since the accident, but what would ERA have done had the skies opened up and a huge dump of rain come in?”

Traditional owners did not feel safe on their own land, he said………GAC is calling for a fully independent review of the leak, along with a full audit of operations at Ranger.http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/12/12/18/42/ranger-clean-up-ignores-traditional-owners

December 13, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, Northern Territory, uranium