Antinuclear

Australia legally bound to take back Lucas Heights high level radioactive trash from France by late 2015

The case got going in Melbourne several weeks ago and then moved to Tennant Creek where, last Saturday, there was explosive evidence that went widely unreported

Australia’s first nuclear waste dump in limbo after Muckaty Station ruled out news.com.au 21 June 14, paul.toohey@news.com.au THE Federal Government always suspected a radioactive waste dump on Aboriginal land was too good to be true. Now their fears have been realised.

The Northern Land Council, after seven years heavily backing Aboriginal land at Muckaty station for the site of the nation’s radioactive waste facility, has withdrawn its nomination for the site in the midst of a Federal Court case.

The Muckaty dump site is dead. Some are celebrating, but Australia has a problem. It needs a dump, yet no state or territory wants it.

The Commonwealth would not — you would think — succeed in asking a regional neighbour to store our radioactive waste, in the way they store asylum-seekers on our behalf in offshore detention.

PUSH BACK: Muckaty Station plan dumped

THE WAR: Where to put Australia’s nuclear waste dump

Australia needs to find a home for reprocessed nuclear fuel rods that will be returned from France in late 2015, and something needs to be done about low-level radioactive waste currently stored in hospital car parks.

Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane has bravely expressed hope that another Aboriginal group from the Territory will now step forth to nominate their land, but it is doubtful the Commonwealth would want to risk another Muckaty.

The battle over the location of the dump, for all these years contained to the relative obscurity of the remotest parts of northern Australia, could well now shift to country towns in WA, Queensland, SA or NSW as the Commonwealth continues an urgent quest to locate suitable land.

They thought they had it covered in 2005 when the then chief executive of the NLC, Norman Fry, came up with a scheme to locate the dump on Aboriginal land.

The Commonwealth, startled but grateful for the proposal after they had earlier lost a case to locate the dump in SA, changed the law so that Aboriginal traditional landowners could nominate their land for the dump.

A group from Muckaty, north of Tennant, duly proposed their land, in exchange for $12.2m (of which only $200,000 has so far been paid). But there were constant questions as to who the proper traditional owners were…….. http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/australias-first-nuclear-waste-dump-in-limbo-after-muckaty-station-ruled-out/story-fn5fsgyc-1226961714663

June 21, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, wastes